From: Bruce Lilly (blilly@erols.com)
Date: Sun Jun 15 2003 - 22:35:15 CDT
Boris 'pi' Piwinger wrote:
> I suggest to return to the original strong wording.
> Obviously, this is trolling only.
The Subject header field was introduced in RFC 561, which makes
no mention of "Re:". Nor do RFCs 724, 733, or 822.
The original Usenet article specification RFC is RFC 850, which
says "should" (not MUST) regarding "Re:" and also requires a
References header field for follow-ups.
So "the original strong wording" is no wording at all for the
generic message format, and a mere suggestion in the case of
RFC 850.
[...]
> Yes, it does. It is confusing for humans who read. I
> understand that you don't care about that, since in theory
> the perfect reader could correct all that nonsense. But why
> introduce it in the first place?
The "nonsense" is the assumption that nobody will ever edit
a Subject field body. That does happen, and neither you nor
your software can rely on "Re: " always being there, nor that
there will never be anything else there.
>>This isn't even an odd-man-out issue. It's an issue of JUSTIFYING the
>>creation of a difference. The difference between RFC2822 and this draft in
>>the matter of the Subject header cannot be justified
>
>
> I don't know if you ever used e-mail, but there Re: is used.
Please cite any mention of "Re: " in the email RFCs (821 and 2821).