[dev] IMAP thread pet peeve

[Kevin Myer]

The IMAP threading code relies (I think) on the IMAP THREAD extension, which
allows mail servers to do the work of threading the results of a folder view. 
If your mail server uses the REFERENCES method, as specified by JWZ, its got
the annoying "feature" that any message with the same subject, even if
unrelated and received years later, are grouped together.  So if I have a "test
message" in my inbox from two years ago and I receive another "test message"
right now, I'm going to have to go back two years to find it.  [Comments about
cleaning out my inbox are appropriate too]

Since this is done server side, I'm not sure of a good way to fix it.  What I'd
like to happen is to have the date take precedence over the subject, for
like-subjected messages.  In other words, if a message has the same subject as
another but is totally unrelated, have it show up at the end of the thread tree
as a new parent.  Why something as loosy-goosy as a subject is cause enough to
group unlike messages together in an algorithm that goes to great lengths in
creating parent/children relations is beyond me.

Mozilla seems to have a preference to tackle this (but I haven't dug deep enough
to see if they use the IMAP THREAD extension to get the initial results or
not):  https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=273497

And mutt has an option for it as noted in the above ticket:
http://www.mutt.org/doc/manual/manual-6.html#strict_threads

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Kevin

-- 
Kevin M. Myer
Senior Systems Administrator
Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13  http://www.iu13.org