Re: Pqx9: In the matter of: Subject-header and "Re: "

From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Jun 17 2003 - 10:20:01 CDT


In <20030617131300.A26394@dora.tertius.net.au> Thorfinn
<thorfinn@tertius.net.au> writes:

>Anyway... Why have it off in USEAGE, rather than USEFOR? Primarily, I
>don't feel that the functionality in question is a "big deal". I don't
>think it causes harm that can be considered really significant to not do
>it. And, in some ways, I feel that USEFOR is for "technical issues",
>whilst USEAGE is for "social issues".

The reason why "MUST (or SHOULD) NOT use 'Re: Re: ...' or 'Sv: '" is
better in USEFOR is to make it clear that any agent that automatically
generates such things is broken and non-compliant, and hence other agents
which try to take note of "Re: " (for whatever reason) are under no
obligation to take note of those cases as well. Anything that declares a
practice non-compliant belongs in USEFOR.

Of course, the occasional troll may generate a "Re: Re: ..." manually
which may confuse even a compliant agent, but then trolls are always up to
that sort of thing, and we just have to live with them.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl@clerew.man.ac.uk      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
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