From: Eivind Tagseth (eivindt@multinet.no)
Date: Fri Jun 18 2004 - 02:44:02 CDT
* Seth Breidbart <sethb@panix.com> [2004-06-17 14:26:44 -0400]:
> Eivind Tagseth <eivindt@multinet.no> wrote:
>
> > 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.
>
> How about something like:
>
> A back-reference is something added to the Subject header content to
> refer to (the Subject of) another message. The standard
> back-reference is "Re: ". Other back references in use may include
> "Sv: " (deprecated), "Fwd: " (deprecated), or
> "$NewSubject [was: " . . . "]" (when added by the user). Those that
> are added automatically by software, other than "Re: ", are referred
> to as "non-standard bac- references".
to refer to the Subject header of another message, or to refer to
the content of another message? It doesn't actually refer to it,
it just indicates that another message started the discussion of
this topic, doesn't it?
Are you saying that "$NewSubject [was: " . . . "]" is also a back-reference?
I think most talk about back-references on this mailinglist are limited
to strings at the very beginning of the Subject. And like John, I'm not
quite sure what you mean by the last sentence. It would make more sense
if you limited the definition of a back-reference to the string being
added automatically by the followup-agent, but then we'd not be able to
refer to strings added by users manually as back-references (which may
be fine).
Eivind