From: J. B. Moreno (planb@newsreaders.com)
Date: Mon Feb 02 2004 - 23:06:32 CST
On 2/2/04 10:04 PM, Russ Allbery at <rra@stanford.edu> wrote:
> J B Moreno <planb@newsreaders.com> writes:
-snip-
>> Looks like an included file to me.
>
> Yes, it had an included file.
>
>> He forwarded a message as an attachment -- and an attachment is an
>> attachment, whether it's a rfc 822 message with a copy of the Lord of
>> the Rings body, or an MPG of the Lord of the Rings, it's still an
>> attachment.
>
> Yes, it's an attachment. So what? Do you think there's something wrong
> with attachments?
>
> You said it was a binary. It wasn't a binary.
Depends upon how you look at it. If you think it just means "contains 8 bit
data" or "an compiled program" then you're right, but if you think of it as
"a file included in a mail/news message which may or may not have 8 bit
data" then it was. For instance alt.binaries.e-book frequently gets
binaries that don't have any actual 8 bit content.
I don't think most users are inclined to exam the content of the files they
get to determine whether or not they are "really" binaries, as opposed to a
file that might have contained binary information but just happened not to,
and a rfc822 message *can* contain 8 bit data, even if that one didn't.
Regardless, however you look at it, the Subject is only mostly unstructured.
It's sorta got structure when including a file in the binary groups, and
it's got "Re: " for followups everywhere. To leave the back reference out
of the definition is to imply that it is optional -- and it's only optional
in the sense that your message will still propogate without it. This isn't
a GNKSA issue any more than not including a References header is.
Scoring is just as important as threading (perhaps more so), and this *is*
used for scoring.
-- J.B. Moreno