From: Martin Djernaes (djernaes@cisco.com)
Date: Mon Mar 04 2002 - 10:05:35 CST
Hi,
Where I can agree that this isn't a pretty sight:
Re: SV: Re: Odp: SV: Some subject line
I still think that the solution is basically wrong.
My argument is that what you are doing, is to suggest that something which
the user have control over, should be manipulated by the computer.
Currently it's common, by a newreader, to insert Re: or something like that
into the Subject line before letting the user edit the field. This behavior
is not very friendly, since it's changing the content of the subject, but
at least it's doing this change before letting the user do the final
editing and send. A change should never happen after the user have approved
the content (also not a language change, since the user expect to see the
mail with exactly this look).
It's also common for some newsreaders to sort a thread based on a subject.
Since the Subject line was made for humans to enter and edit, this can only
be seen as an alternative functionality to the more computer friendly
References field (or others with event more power).
Inserting anything else that Re: in front of a subject leave a few
problems. The first problem is that this isn't pretty, but it's a human
field and anyone can "edit" this to become "more pretty". Another problem
is that this would break sorting by Subject, but since sorting by subject
is a computer approach of understanding a field entered by humans, and this
behavior must be seen as questionable as best. Finally, can pre pending of
prefixes lead to "extra long lines", but since a computer is doing the
prepend, it should never let the line exceed the maximum.
Instead of using pseudo magic words/keys for Re: was: etc. the newsreader
could keep an extra field in the header maintaining the original or last
subject. If it's altering the subject with Re: it should keep the original
subject in this alternative field. The same logic can be used for a
previous subject (was), where the newsreader can insert the previous
subject so others can display what the subject was.
I really have a problem with this draft suggesting to use Re: and only Re:
as prefix, and especially that some people think that the way to get this
through to the world is by filtering out mails with have a prefix different
than Re: (and no I haven't tested with NEW: etc., but I know that some
admins - with reference to this draft - ignore mails from people). Doing
this is leading to distrust in the news system, and is just another way to
say "please keep of my news server, newbe". The Subject field is let to the
user to enter, and he/she can enter New: Ot: Btw: or something else in the
subject. This should never leave to a mail being discarded as "non
compliant".
So, of these reasons I suggest that we evaluate (again I guess) what other
options there are to reach the goal which have lead to restrict the subject
to be limited in the input value. Restricting the user isn't a good
approach, and a better solution must be avalible.
Regards,
Martin
-- Talking for myself!