From: Eivind Tagseth (eivindt@multinet.no)
Date: Thu Jun 17 2004 - 02:19:09 CDT
* Bruce Lilly <blilly@erols.com> [2004-06-16 11:36:13 -0400]:
> Eivind Tagseth wrote:
> > * Bruce Lilly <blilly@erols.com> [2004-06-15 10:07:27 -0400]:
> >>Charles Lindsey wrote:
> >>>Message-ID: <Hy0G3v.Hsz@clerew.man.ac.uk>
> >>> Followup agents MAY remove strings that are known to be used
> >>> erroneously as back-references (such as "Re(2): ", "Re: Re: ", "Re:",
> >>> "RE: ", or "Sv: ") from the Subject-content when composing the
> >>> subject of a followup, and add a correct back-reference in front of
> >>> the result.
> > This is unfair, the text above comes from GNKSA. It was not changed by
> > Charles
>
> That is untrue. It came from Charles' message, as quoted in the referenced
> message. I have two versions of "GNKSA" documents, and neither one contains
> the term "back-references" anywhere -- that term is clearly visible in Charles'
> text quoted above. So it cannot have come "from GNKSA"..
Ok, my mistake, sorry.
> > Besides, he agreed to change this long ago,
> > replacing it with text saying that rather than stripping off strings
> > known to be used as back-references, the agent should deter from adding
> > yet another back-reference (i.e. "Re: ") if a non-standard back-reference
> > was already present.
>
> Has he? If so, then why did he respond to the earlier question by stating that
> that text as written had not been withdrawn? If "he agreed to change this
> long ago", then why did he propose it in the referenced message -- which was
> only a couple of weeks prior to the discussion which prompted this review
> (on June 6, in response to Charles' June 5 message in response to your June
> 4th message).
In Message-ID: <HyBJp6.Mz8@clerew.man.ac.uk> he says:
> OK, I now propose, in place of the disputed text:
>
> It would be wiser for any followup agents which are able to
> recognize non-standard back-references such as "Re(2): ", "Sv: ",
> etc. to refrain from prepending anything further, but other attempts
> to mend the problem are likely to do more harm than good.
> I also recall objections to use of the ill-defined "back-reference", and
> specifically to "non-standard back-references".
Yes, these are still not covered satisfactory. I still think that if
we're going to use the term «back-reference», we need a clear definition
of the term.
Eivind