[R] How do you do an e-mail post that is within an ongoing thread?

[Gavin Simpson]

On Fri, 2007-06-08 at 20:39 -0500, Robert Wilkins wrote:
> That may sound like a stupid question, but if it confuses me, I'm sure
> it confuses others as well. I've tried to find that information on the
> R mail-group info pages, can't seem to find it. Is it something
> obvious?
> 
> To begin a brand new discussion, you do your post as an e-mail sent to
>  r-help at stat.math.ethz.ch .
> As I am doing right now.
> 
> How do I do an additional post that gets included in the
> "[R] Tools For Preparing Data For Analysis" thread, a thread which I
> started myself yesterday ( thanks for all the responses everybody )?

Just reply all (to the list and the sender of the email, plus any other
recipients in the CC list if appropriate) to the email you wish to
comment on. You can reply at any point in the thread and your email will
end up located in that position in the thread, i.e. underneath the
message you replied to in the thread.

The actual threading is dealt with by peoples own email software (and by
the software used to manage the archives), via some of the headers sent
along with your email, for example:

In-Reply-To: <83dca7860706081427j24cd4071l35e462470ec02e61 at something.com>
References: <83dca7860706081427j24cd4071l35e462470ec02e61 at something.com>

The long code there is the Message-Id header of the email that the reply
references.

Most emailers will hide all of these headers from you, but a good one
will allow you to look at all the headers or the actual source of the
email, where you will be able to see them, along with a lot of other
information about the message sent.

> 
> There's got to be a real easy answer to that, since everybody else does that.
> (I'm using gmail, does it make a difference what e-mail host you use?).

I've not use gmail much, but many people on the list do and they end up
in the correct place in the thread. Note that in Gmail to see the
headers for a message you can select "show original" from the little
drop down menu (down triangle) next to the reply button.

HTH

G
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