OT - the OT tag and the Re bug.

Recently, Jose posted:

What of those readers that truncate long lines or as in your app's
case oddly truncate subject lines that have mulitple "OT:" in them?
I'd think that the multiple tree roots would be the more desirable
consequence.

Those wouldn't be issues either.

Truncating: Avoiding the colon doesn't lengthen the line (except for
the first re. It merely keeps the original OT in the subject line.
It ensures that "OT" is not treated special.

Truncated long lines and oddly truncated lines are not part of the same
behavior. I was referring to the larger issue of making subject lines
compatible with all readers and under all configurations.

My app doesn't "oddly trucnate subject lines".

I was referring to your reply to my post where I added an extra "OT:
(was..." and your reader posted only " OT - OT:" If your app didn't do
that, then you did for some reason that really escapes me. ;-)

I don't understand when multple tree roots would be better.

In the above example, a new subject line without any reference to the
topic was created, yet your reply appeared in the thread tree and below
the post to which you responded. IOW, the context was preserved even
though the subject had changed.

If the subject line contains the proper reference to the topic (e.g. two
thread tree roots with "Electric Car" in the subject line), then it is not
a big problem to follow the thread. Also, at least with OE multiple tree
roots only appear if one is hiding read messages regardless of the subject
line, so I see it as a consequence of the convenience of hiding read
messages rather than a bug in the way the reader works.

Neil