I think that for (b), setting the From to a bogus
"reports+<user>@bugs.python.org" but leaving a correct Reply-To should cover the
gmail use case, without MTA changes. The question would then be 'what MUAs does
it break?'. :)

(a) should be resolved as of r59861; this message should have an in-reply-to
header even though it was submitted through the web interface.

(b) remains open, as it probably requires MTA reconfiguration.

Guido van Rossum schrieb:
> Guido van Rossum added the comment:
> 
>> If you follow up through the web interface (which I do here right now), what
>> in-reply-to message ID would you like to see in this message (assuming there had
>> been several messages already submitted for this issue)? Should it perhaps
>> prefer References: over In-reply-to:?
> 
> Any one will do, so the last one would be fine -- or the first one.
> Gmail doesn't have a tree structure to the conversation, though other
> MUAs might.

In Thunderbird, I see comments sent by mail interface threaded under the
comment in response to which the response was sent, and comments submitted
through the web interface listed under the OP.

That may be as good as it can get.

Georg

> If you follow up through the web interface (which I do here right now), what
> in-reply-to message ID would you like to see in this message (assuming there had
> been several messages already submitted for this issue)? Should it perhaps
> prefer References: over In-reply-to:?

Any one will do, so the last one would be fine -- or the first one.
Gmail doesn't have a tree structure to the conversation, though other
MUAs might.

I'm unclear on the difference between References: and In-reply-to:; I
suspect either would work. I know In-reply-to works because I used it
before for this purpose. :-)

If you follow up through the web interface (which I do here right now), what
in-reply-to message ID would you like to see in this message (assuming there had
been several messages already submitted for this issue)? Should it perhaps
prefer References: over In-reply-to:?

I love the email integration of the bug tracker!

But I also love gmail.

There are two issues with the email from the bug tracker in gmail:

(a) Threading doesn't always work. I believe that in order to make it work, you
should use an in-reply-to header listing the message-id of at least one previous
message in the thread.

(b) When threading *does* work, in gmail's Inbox display, it looks like all
messages were sent by the first author in the thread. This is because the
tracker uses the same email address (reports@bugs.python.org) for all email it
sends, only varying the "real name" part.  Somehow the inbox decides that all
mail from the same email address comes from the same real name.  (Usually a fair
assumption. :-)  A solution for this might be to use the username as the email
address, or if that's too complicated, perhaps something like
reports+<user>@bugs.python.org.  (Many MTAs these days have support for
funneling all mail to x+y@domain to x@domain, making this an attractive solution.)