From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: Mon Mar 01 2004 - 09:22:20 CST
In <87r7wgcrh1.fsf@windlord.stanford.edu> Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:
>So let me see if I've got this right. You want to describe "Re: " in the
>Usenet article format document in part because you don't like how one of
>the proposed IMAP extensions is documenting subject sorting, and rather
>than discuss it in the appropriate working group and try to reach a
>consensus with that group, you instead want to blindside them with a
>document from another working group?
>And you think this is appropriate and useful behavior?
The IMAP proposal is trying to imply considerably more structure in the
Subject-header that any of us in this discussion is comfortable with. It
is the thin end of a nasty wedge, and I want no part of it.
The only piece of structure that is widely implemented and recognized in
Netnews is a single "Re: ". With hindsight, even that is probably too much
and in a perfect world we would wave a magic wand and it would cease.
But we live in an imperfect world, and so we will have to tolerate a
single "Re: " for some considerable time into the future because it is not
going to go away. For IMAP to be pulling in exactly the opposite direction
is a great pity, but I have no time to get involved in IMAP politics.
I only mentioned it to draw attention to the fact that there were far
worse usages within a so called structured header than the single "Re: "
that some of want to retain within Netnews, simply to allow existing usages
to continue without breakage. I am sure Bruce and John Stanley could make
a far better job of persuading IMAP to back off than I could.
-- 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. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5