Re: New Internet Draft: draft-duerst-archived-at-00.txt

[Keith Moore <moore@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> > It might be appropriate for the field name to start with List-*, at
> > least for those cases where the archive is associated with a list.  
> > That
> > way, it's easier to separate fields added by a list from fields 
> > supplied
> > by the sender.
>
> Good point. But it is not really restricted to lists. There are
> other potential applications, which are not related to mailing lists.
> So starting with List-* would be confusing.

Maybe it should only start with List- when added by a list.  But it 
seems like we're finding more and more cases where it's a bad idea to 
have a header field without very clear rules on who is allowed to set 
that field.  We've seen this with Reply-To and Sender and also with 
Carl Malamud's Solicitation field proposal.

> > I'd also recommend that the link point to an archived copy of the
> > message in original form, rather than, say, one that is translated to
> > HTML.  Translating to HTML causes a loss of information and 
> > potentially
> > a loss of functionality. You should be able to reply to an archived
> > message, refile it into a folder,  follow threads, etc., but those
> > things are harder to do if the message is no longer in its original
> > format.
>
> I have added some text about different formats, along the lines
> suggested by Graham. I think functions such as being able to reply,...
> would be great. Actually, our archives have such a function;
> look for "Mail actions: [ respond to this message ]". The functionality
> is limited to what can be done with the 'mailto' URI, and only
> preserves some headers, and not the body. If you have ideas on
> how to implement improvements, that would be great.

There are limits on what you can do with HTML and HTTP.  Being able to 
access the archived message from IMAP is potentially a lot better, but 
(as with many things) even IMAP needs some tweaking to make it work 
well for this.