From: Martin Djernaes (djernaes@cisco.com)
Date: Fri Mar 01 2002 - 10:00:58 CST
Hi Clive,
"Clive D.W. Feather" wrote:
> In theory you should be able to tell the start of a thread from a
> continuation article by looking for a References header. However, in
> practice such headers are often missing. By reserving the "Re: " prefix for
> followups, the draft provides some useful redundancy, redundancy that
> newsreader software already takes advantage of.
My problem is that I find that by making Subject a "computerized" field you
are breaking the functionallity of th Subject field. If a computer want to
evaluate a field, entered by humans, let them do it but don't put
constrains on the human because of a problem with computeres.
If you really need any means of knowing what the original subject was
(after Re: or was:) use new header fields to indicate the "original" or
"alteded" subject.
The requirement you are putting on the Subject field is basically not
possible to keep. Often people will prepend a mail with OT: for off-topic,
but the language isn't given. Also national differences in the prefix is
very likely, and because of the widespread use of certain mail programs,
impossible to prevent. New users will use whatever program avalible, and
will alter the subject without knowledge of what a "standard" say. So in
reallity you can't put any heuristics on the Subject line and expect to get
a decent result. If you need any extra information, make non-human fields
to achieve the goal instead.
Regards,
Martin
-- Talking for myeself.