From: John Stanley (stanley@peak.org)
Date: Tue Oct 17 2000 - 17:49:08 CDT
Erland Sommarskog (sommar@algonet.se) writes:
> Other people on this list say that they want this information in the
> header because it's "structured information", and it appears that they
> want their mailer to do something magic with it.
It isn't magic. I want my mail processing system to be able to throw away
messages that come from USENET unbidden into my email. Putting the "blurb"
in the body does not accomplish this, it has the agent futzing with the
body where it does not belong, and it creates the very likely possibility
that the sender will simply erase this notice as "I did not write this,
and it intereferes with the critical message that I must send by email."
> If the only point with including this information is for display, the
> body is a far more better place, because in the header it will be
> hidden.
Some people could say that the only point in including the From:
information is for display. Ditto Date. Ditto "In Reply To". Ditto
"References". By your argument, these all belong in the body and not the
header.
But then, you argument is patently wrong, since it most certainly will not
be hidden on my mail agent. To keep claiming that information in the
header is somehow "hidden" when every mail agent I know of allows headers
to be seen is spreading misinformation.
Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk):
> From header. The followup agent SHOULD also include a "Posted-And
> Mailed: yes" header ().
>[I think the second SHOULD is reasonable. A couple of people wanted
>MUST.]
What possible reason is there not to make this a "MUST"? What breaks if
this header is included, as opposed to preventing stealth CC's if it is
mandatory?
> emailed versions of the article. The Newsgroups header of the posted
> article SHOULD be included in the email version as recommended in
> section 5.5.
Again, MUST. Why do you think it's wise to have messages that say "Ha!
I've been posted and mailed, but I'm not gonna tell you what group I was
posted to, I'll make you search USENET to find the posted copy so you can
respond in public if you want".