From: Alexey Melnikov (alexey.melnikov-usefor@isode.com)
Date: Thu Jun 10 2004 - 13:36:36 CDT
Charles Lindsey wrote:
>>That's fine, though
>>s/such a "Re: "/"an initial "Re: "/
>>would (I think) make it better (less potentially ambiguous, and we've
>>seen people misconstrue references to the same paragraph before).
>>
>>
>
>OK, I have made it "such an initial "Re: ".
>
>Time to show you the full text as it currently stands, after various
>recent tweaks:
>
> 2. The Subject-header SHOULD by default be taken from that of the
> precursor's Subject-header. The case sensitive string "Re: "
> (known as a "back reference") MAY be prepended to its Subject-
> Content unless it already begins with that string.
>
> NOTE: The practice of prepending such a "Re: " (an abbreviation,
> commonly used in English and some other languages, for the Latin
> "In re", meaning "in the matter of") is widespread, but also not
> without its difficulties (described in detail in [USEAGE]). Some
> reading agents take note of the Subject-header (as well as other
> headers) when presenting articles for display (again, see
> [USEAGE]) and such agents find it desirable to ignore such an
> initial "Re: " when comparing subjects. For this reason, no other
> form of back-reference (such as a translation of "Re: " into
> another language) is permitted, although reading and followup
> agents MAY choose to recognize case insensitive forms such as
> "RE: ".
>
As per my message posted yesterday, I think most of this note should be
moved to USEAGE (or dropped).
> Observe that there is no compulsion to use back-references.
> Implementors of followup agents are free to prepend them or not as
> they see fit.
>
The last sentence is just repeating the meaning conveyed by MAY in the
first.
Alexey