Hi all, Some light food for thought and request for your thoughts and comments, and with apologies for cross-posting. How do we determine the "recordness" of an email message? My straw man: An email message is a record if its contents or attachments meet the definition of a record as determined in the records policy. This may include content that the organization has legal, operational, or regulatory obligations to preserve. Questions: If the subject line is changed but the content remains in the same thread, are there ramifications? If the content changes but the subject line remains the same, are there ramifications (RE: and FW: notwithstanding) What is the effect of replying and keeping the previous content (as is the default for many email clients) a) unchanged; b) excerpted; c) completely removed (such that each email contains only what the current sender typed and no remnants from previous senders)? What is the effect of changing the format, e.g. from text to HTML to RTF to text? What is the ramification of forwarding an email with attachments (which may or may not have been changed prior to forwarding) vs. replying to an email with attachments (which reply, at least in Microsoft Outlook, does NOT include the attachment)? More questions as I think of them based on your responses. What I am driving at is as close as I can get to the definitive understanding of all the questions that need to be asked, and therefore accounted for, when determining whether to declare a message as a record. Regards, Jesse Wilkins CDIA+, LIT, EDP, ICP IMERGE Consulting (303) 574-1455 office (303) 484-4142 fax [log in to unmask] http://www.imergeconsult.com Yahoo!: jessewilkins8511 MSN Messenger: [log in to unmask] List archives at http://lists.ufl.edu/archives/recmgmt-l.html Contact [log in to unmask] for assistance