The last two times I have originated message threads on R or
Bioconductor I have received the message included below from someone
named Patrick Connolly. Both times I was the originator of the message
thread and used what I thought was a unique subject line that explained
as best I could what my question was. Patrick seems to be implying that
I am abusing the R and BioC help newsgroups in this fashion.
When I emailed him to give me a specific example, he did not reply. The
most recent thread that he seems concerned about was to the R list and
was entitled "regexpr and parsing question" . I believe the previous
post of mine that he had problems with was to the BioC list but I can't
remember its subject.
Is this spam?
If I am doing this correctly, you should see the subject "possible spam
alert" in the subject header of THIS message.
Would the moderators of the lists please check and see if I am doing
some wrong and, if not, inform Mr. Connolly that I am not. If others
have received this message in error, it is possible it is spam and users
should be alerted.
Thanks,
Mark
Mark W. Kimpel MD
Official Business Address:
Department of Psychiatry
Indiana University School of Medicine
PR M116
Institute of Psychiatric Research
791 Union Drive
Indianapolis, IN 46202
This is a request to anyone who starts a new subject to begin with a new
message and NOT reply to an existing one. If your mail client is any
good, it's very simple to set up an alias (mine is simply 'r') so
that
the tedious task of typing 'r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch' is unnecessary
and
it's quicker than scrolling through an address book.
It's also quicker than deleting the previous subject.
Most mornings, I have over a screenful of messages mostly from R-help
and it's very useful to have them threaded. However, the usefulness of
threading is lost when posters reply to a message and then change the
subject instead of creating a new message.
People who don't have a mail client that can display email in threads
are probably unaware that this sort of thing can happen in ones that do:
37 N 25 Jan Luis Silva ( 34) [R] plot/screen
38 N 25 Jan Uwe Ligges ( 55) `->
39 N 25 Jan Fernando Henrique Ferra ( 20) [R] Plotting coloured
histograms
-> 40 N 26 Jan Mohamed A. Kerasha ( 12) |->[R] Distributions.
41 N 26 Jan ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk ( 26) | |->
42 26 Jan Qin Xin ( 9) | `->[R] how could I add
legends
43 27 Jan Ko-Kang Kevin Wang ( 31) | `->
44 N 26 Jan Remigijus Lapinskas ( 32) |->Re: [R] Plotting
coloured his
45 N 26 Jan Damon Wischik (125) `->
46 N 25 Jan Rex_Bryan at urscorp.com ( 10) [R] plotting primatives,
ellipse
47 N 25 Jan Uwe Ligges ( 19) `->
As Martin Maechler explained some time ago, it also screws up the
archives for a similar reason.
Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated.
best
--
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
___ Patrick Connolly
{~._.~} Great minds discuss ideas
_( Y )_ Middle minds discuss events
(:_~*~_:) Small minds discuss people
(_)-(_) ..... Anon
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.
On 1/31/2007 5:38 PM, Kimpel, Mark William wrote:> The last two times I have originated message threads on R or > Bioconductor I have received the message included below from someone > named Patrick Connolly. Both times I was the originator of the message > thread and used what I thought was a unique subject line that explained > as best I could what my question was. Patrick seems to be implying that > I am abusing the R and BioC help newsgroups in this fashion.Your last message (subject "[R] regexpr and parsing question") shows up in my reader as a reply to a message by Gabor Grothendieck with subject "Re: [R] change plotting symbol for groups in trellis graph", because it has this line in the header: In-Reply-To: <971536df0701301355j77b8d05oabce276b61fa2bf7 at mail.gmail.com> and his message had this in the header: Message-ID: <971536df0701301355j77b8d05oabce276b61fa2bf7 at mail.gmail.com> That's what Patrick was complaining about. You probably found Gabor's message in the group, hit "Reply", and then edited the subject line to make it unique. Your mailer remembered that it was a reply to Gabor's message, and told everyone that, even though it wasn't really. Instead, if you want to write to R-help, just start a new message, and send it to r-help at r-project.org (or r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch). Duncan Murdoch> > When I emailed him to give me a specific example, he did not reply. The > most recent thread that he seems concerned about was to the R list and > was entitled "regexpr and parsing question" . I believe the previous > post of mine that he had problems with was to the BioC list but I can't > remember its subject. > > Is this spam? > > If I am doing this correctly, you should see the subject "possible spam > alert" in the subject header of THIS message. > > Would the moderators of the lists please check and see if I am doing > some wrong and, if not, inform Mr. Connolly that I am not. If others > have received this message in error, it is possible it is spam and users > should be alerted. > > Thanks, > > Mark > > Mark W. Kimpel MD > > > > > > Official Business Address: > > > > Department of Psychiatry > > Indiana University School of Medicine > > PR M116 > > Institute of Psychiatric Research > > 791 Union Drive > > Indianapolis, IN 46202 > > > This is a request to anyone who starts a new subject to begin with a new > message and NOT reply to an existing one. If your mail client is any > good, it's very simple to set up an alias (mine is simply 'r') so that > the tedious task of typing 'r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch' is unnecessary and > it's quicker than scrolling through an address book. > It's also quicker than deleting the previous subject. > > Most mornings, I have over a screenful of messages mostly from R-help > and it's very useful to have them threaded. However, the usefulness of > threading is lost when posters reply to a message and then change the > subject instead of creating a new message. > > People who don't have a mail client that can display email in threads > are probably unaware that this sort of thing can happen in ones that do: > > > 37 N 25 Jan Luis Silva ( 34) [R] plot/screen > 38 N 25 Jan Uwe Ligges ( 55) `-> > 39 N 25 Jan Fernando Henrique Ferra ( 20) [R] Plotting coloured > histograms > -> 40 N 26 Jan Mohamed A. Kerasha ( 12) |->[R] Distributions. > 41 N 26 Jan ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk ( 26) | |-> > 42 26 Jan Qin Xin ( 9) | `->[R] how could I add > legends > 43 27 Jan Ko-Kang Kevin Wang ( 31) | `-> > 44 N 26 Jan Remigijus Lapinskas ( 32) |->Re: [R] Plotting > coloured his > 45 N 26 Jan Damon Wischik (125) `-> > 46 N 25 Jan Rex_Bryan at urscorp.com ( 10) [R] plotting primatives, > ellipse > 47 N 25 Jan Uwe Ligges ( 19) `-> > > > As Martin Maechler explained some time ago, it also screws up the > archives for a similar reason. > > Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated. > > best >
Kimpel, Mark William wrote:> The last two times I have originated message threads on R or > Bioconductor I have received the message included below from someone > named Patrick Connolly. Both times I was the originator of the message > thread and used what I thought was a unique subject line that explained > as best I could what my question was. Patrick seems to be implying that > I am abusing the R and BioC help newsgroups in this fashion. > > When I emailed him to give me a specific example, he did not reply. The > most recent thread that he seems concerned about was to the R list and > was entitled "regexpr and parsing question" . I believe the previous > post of mine that he had problems with was to the BioC list but I can't > remember its subject. > > Is this spam? >No. Breach of netiquette, yes. The message in question starts a new thread, yet contains an In-Reply-To: header line, which presumably means that you started writing the message as a reply to something completely unrelated, specifically: "Re: [R] change plotting symbol for groups in trellis graph". You should not do that, unless you know how to remove the In-Reply-To line (and this is not obvious in many mail clients); changing the subject is not sufficient.> If I am doing this correctly, you should see the subject "possible spam > alert" in the subject header of THIS message. > > Would the moderators of the lists please check and see if I am doing > some wrong and, if not, inform Mr. Connolly that I am not. If others > have received this message in error, it is possible it is spam and users > should be alerted. > > Thanks, > > Mark > > Mark W. Kimpel MD > > > > > > Official Business Address: > > > > Department of Psychiatry > > Indiana University School of Medicine > > PR M116 > > Institute of Psychiatric Research > > 791 Union Drive > > Indianapolis, IN 46202 > > > This is a request to anyone who starts a new subject to begin with a new > message and NOT reply to an existing one. If your mail client is any > good, it's very simple to set up an alias (mine is simply 'r') so that > the tedious task of typing 'r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch' is unnecessary and > it's quicker than scrolling through an address book. > It's also quicker than deleting the previous subject. > > Most mornings, I have over a screenful of messages mostly from R-help > and it's very useful to have them threaded. However, the usefulness of > threading is lost when posters reply to a message and then change the > subject instead of creating a new message. > > People who don't have a mail client that can display email in threads > are probably unaware that this sort of thing can happen in ones that do: > > > 37 N 25 Jan Luis Silva ( 34) [R] plot/screen > 38 N 25 Jan Uwe Ligges ( 55) `-> > 39 N 25 Jan Fernando Henrique Ferra ( 20) [R] Plotting coloured > histograms > -> 40 N 26 Jan Mohamed A. Kerasha ( 12) |->[R] Distributions. > 41 N 26 Jan ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk ( 26) | |-> > 42 26 Jan Qin Xin ( 9) | `->[R] how could I add > legends > 43 27 Jan Ko-Kang Kevin Wang ( 31) | `-> > 44 N 26 Jan Remigijus Lapinskas ( 32) |->Re: [R] Plotting > coloured his > 45 N 26 Jan Damon Wischik (125) `-> > 46 N 25 Jan Rex_Bryan at urscorp.com ( 10) [R] plotting primatives, > ellipse > 47 N 25 Jan Uwe Ligges ( 19) `-> > > > As Martin Maechler explained some time ago, it also screws up the > archives for a similar reason. > > Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated. > > best > >
Hi Mark, I'm sending this off-list because I don't want to unnecessarily fill people's inbox if I'm wrong. I think you are misunderstanding Patrick's problem. The point is kind of subtle and requires a bit of knowledge of how e-mail works. What he is complaining about is that people take a random message on the mailing list, hit reply and then change the subject, as opposed to creating a new message. For most people this ends up being the same: a new message appears with a new subject heading. In some cases, which include the archiving system, the e-mail client tries to organize the e-mails by threads. Because some people tend to change the subject name inside of a thread, there is an additional (hidden) identifier that is used. This means that if you replied to a random message, you are now associated to an unrelated thread, which is annoying at best and can cause your message to be ignored at worst. This is especially true in a high-volume list like R-help, as most people don't want to jump all over to follow a conversation and having a completely irrelevant message inside a conversation is confusing. Hopefully this clarifies the situation. You're not being accused of spamming, but of not following one of the finer points of mailing list etiquette. Given the volume of the lists involved and the time and effort that many people spend in reading and replying to the list, I think it is a good idea to make the extra effort to make sure that everything runs smoothly. Francois On Wed, 2007-01-31 at 17:38 -0500, Kimpel, Mark William wrote:> The last two times I have originated message threads on R or > Bioconductor I have received the message included below from someone > named Patrick Connolly. Both times I was the originator of the message > thread and used what I thought was a unique subject line that explained > as best I could what my question was. Patrick seems to be implying that > I am abusing the R and BioC help newsgroups in this fashion. > > When I emailed him to give me a specific example, he did not reply. The > most recent thread that he seems concerned about was to the R list and > was entitled "regexpr and parsing question" . I believe the previous > post of mine that he had problems with was to the BioC list but I can't > remember its subject. > > Is this spam? > > If I am doing this correctly, you should see the subject "possible spam > alert" in the subject header of THIS message. > > Would the moderators of the lists please check and see if I am doing > some wrong and, if not, inform Mr. Connolly that I am not. If others > have received this message in error, it is possible it is spam and users > should be alerted. > > Thanks, > > Mark > > Mark W. Kimpel MD > > > > > > Official Business Address: > > > > Department of Psychiatry > > Indiana University School of Medicine > > PR M116 > > Institute of Psychiatric Research > > 791 Union Drive > > Indianapolis, IN 46202 > > > This is a request to anyone who starts a new subject to begin with a new > message and NOT reply to an existing one. If your mail client is any > good, it's very simple to set up an alias (mine is simply 'r') so that > the tedious task of typing 'r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch' is unnecessary and > it's quicker than scrolling through an address book. > It's also quicker than deleting the previous subject. > > Most mornings, I have over a screenful of messages mostly from R-help > and it's very useful to have them threaded. However, the usefulness of > threading is lost when posters reply to a message and then change the > subject instead of creating a new message. > > People who don't have a mail client that can display email in threads > are probably unaware that this sort of thing can happen in ones that do: > > > 37 N 25 Jan Luis Silva ( 34) [R] plot/screen > 38 N 25 Jan Uwe Ligges ( 55) `-> > 39 N 25 Jan Fernando Henrique Ferra ( 20) [R] Plotting coloured > histograms > -> 40 N 26 Jan Mohamed A. Kerasha ( 12) |->[R] Distributions. > 41 N 26 Jan ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk ( 26) | |-> > 42 26 Jan Qin Xin ( 9) | `->[R] how could I add > legends > 43 27 Jan Ko-Kang Kevin Wang ( 31) | `-> > 44 N 26 Jan Remigijus Lapinskas ( 32) |->Re: [R] Plotting > coloured his > 45 N 26 Jan Damon Wischik (125) `-> > 46 N 25 Jan Rex_Bryan at urscorp.com ( 10) [R] plotting primatives, > ellipse > 47 N 25 Jan Uwe Ligges ( 19) `-> > > > As Martin Maechler explained some time ago, it also screws up the > archives for a similar reason. > > Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated. > > best >
See below for Bert Gunter's off list reply to me (which I do appreciate). I'm putting it back on the list because it seems there is still confusion regarding the difference between threading and sorting by subject. I thought the example I will give below will serve as instructional for other Outlook users who may be similarly confused as I was (am?). Per Bert's instructions, I just set up my inbox to sort by subject. I sent one email to myself with the subject "test1" and then replied to it without changing the subject. The reply correctly went to "test1" in the inbox sorter. I then changed the subject heading in the test1 reply to "test2" and sent it to myself. This time Outlook re-categorized it and put it in a separate compartment in the view called "test2". If Outlook can do threading the way the R mail server does, I don't think this is the way to do it. Unless someone has an idea of how to correctly set up Outlook to do threading in the manner that the R mail server does, I think the message for us Outlook users is to just create, from scratch, a new message when initiating a new subject. Thanks for all your help. Mark -----Original Message----- From: Bert Gunter [mailto:gunter.berton at gene.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 7:03 PM To: Kimpel, Mark William Subject: Outlook does threading Mark: No need to bother the R list with this. Outlook does threading. Just sort on Subject in the viewer. Bert Gunter Genentech Nonclinical Statistics South San Francisco, CA 94404 650-467-7374 -----Original Message----- From: r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch [mailto:r-help-bounces at stat.math.ethz.ch] On Behalf Of Kimpel, Mark William Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 3:36 PM To: Peter Dalgaard Cc: r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch; bioconductor at stat.math.ethz.ch Subject: Re: [R] possible spam alert Peter, Thanks you for your explanation, I had taken Mr. Connolly's message to me to imply that I was not changing the subject line. I use MS Outlook 2007 and, unless I am just not seeing it, Outlook does not normally display the "in reply to" header, I was under the mistaken impression that that was what the Subject line was for. See, for example, the header to your message to me below. Outlook will, however, sort messages by Subject, and that is what I thought was meant by threading. Well, I learned something today and apologize for any inconvenience my posts may have caused. BTW, I use Outlook because it is supported by my university server and will synch my appointments and contacts with my PDA, which runs Windows CE. If anyone has a suggestion for me of a better email program that will provide proper threading AND work with a MS email server and synch with Windows CE, I'd love to hear it. Thanks again, Mark Mark W. Kimpel MD (317) 490-5129 Work, & Mobile (317) 663-0513 Home (no voice mail please) 1-(317)-536-2730 FAX -----Original Message----- From: Peter Dalgaard [mailto:p.dalgaard at biostat.ku.dk] Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2007 6:25 PM To: Kimpel, Mark William Cc: bioconductor at stat.math.ethz.ch; r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch Subject: Re: [R] possible spam alert Kimpel, Mark William wrote:> The last two times I have originated message threads on R or > Bioconductor I have received the message included below from someone > named Patrick Connolly. Both times I was the originator of the message > thread and used what I thought was a unique subject line thatexplained> as best I could what my question was. Patrick seems to be implyingthat> I am abusing the R and BioC help newsgroups in this fashion. > > When I emailed him to give me a specific example, he did not reply.The> most recent thread that he seems concerned about was to the R list and > was entitled "regexpr and parsing question" . I believe the previous > post of mine that he had problems with was to the BioC list but Ican't> remember its subject. > > Is this spam? >No. Breach of netiquette, yes. The message in question starts a new thread, yet contains an In-Reply-To: header line, which presumably means that you started writing the message as a reply to something completely unrelated, specifically: "Re: [R] change plotting symbol for groups in trellis graph". You should not do that, unless you know how to remove the In-Reply-To line (and this is not obvious in many mail clients); changing the subject is not sufficient.> If I am doing this correctly, you should see the subject "possiblespam> alert" in the subject header of THIS message. > > Would the moderators of the lists please check and see if I am doing > some wrong and, if not, inform Mr. Connolly that I am not. If others > have received this message in error, it is possible it is spam andusers> should be alerted. > > Thanks, > > Mark > > Mark W. Kimpel MD > > > > > > Official Business Address: > > > > Department of Psychiatry > > Indiana University School of Medicine > > PR M116 > > Institute of Psychiatric Research > > 791 Union Drive > > Indianapolis, IN 46202 > > > This is a request to anyone who starts a new subject to begin with anew> message and NOT reply to an existing one. If your mail client is any > good, it's very simple to set up an alias (mine is simply 'r') so that > the tedious task of typing 'r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch' is unnecessaryand> it's quicker than scrolling through an address book. > It's also quicker than deleting the previous subject. > > Most mornings, I have over a screenful of messages mostly from R-help > and it's very useful to have them threaded. However, the usefulnessof> threading is lost when posters reply to a message and then change the > subject instead of creating a new message. > > People who don't have a mail client that can display email in threads > are probably unaware that this sort of thing can happen in ones thatdo:> > > 37 N 25 Jan Luis Silva ( 34) [R] plot/screen > 38 N 25 Jan Uwe Ligges ( 55) `-> > 39 N 25 Jan Fernando Henrique Ferra ( 20) [R] Plotting coloured > histograms > -> 40 N 26 Jan Mohamed A. Kerasha ( 12) |->[R] Distributions. > 41 N 26 Jan ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk ( 26) | |-> > 42 26 Jan Qin Xin ( 9) | `->[R] how could Iadd> legends > 43 27 Jan Ko-Kang Kevin Wang ( 31) | `-> > 44 N 26 Jan Remigijus Lapinskas ( 32) |->Re: [R] Plotting > coloured his > 45 N 26 Jan Damon Wischik (125) `-> > 46 N 25 Jan Rex_Bryan at urscorp.com ( 10) [R] plottingprimatives,> ellipse > 47 N 25 Jan Uwe Ligges ( 19) `-> > > > As Martin Maechler explained some time ago, it also screws up the > archives for a similar reason. > > Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated. > > best > >______________________________________________ R-help at stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.