From: Bruce Lilly (blilly@erols.com)
Date: Fri Mar 12 2004 - 08:31:46 CST
J.B.Moreno wrote:
> That's not my point of disagreement -- I really do think that the "Re: " is
> part of the syntax...
Can you substantiate that in engineering terms based on RFC 822 syntax
(text and EBNF), which has been the basis for Usenet articles for at least
two decades, or based on RFC 2822 syntax (text and ABNF) which is currently
the basis for the Usefor draft?
> Saying that the Subject is only for display, isn't true
Please provide an example of use unrelated to display. Show how it affects
filing, transfer, expiration, etc. of the article.
> and even if it
> was...the whole point of news is to display the articles, if that doesn't
> happen it's a failure.
What's your point? Nobody is proposing to make the Subject field optional
or to forbid its inclusion in an article.
Are you saying that if my Subject field says
Subject: Re: Re:
and it is displayed as "Re:", that that is a failure? You may be right.
Are you saying that if an article contains a header field
X-foo: bar baz
and if that field isn't displayed by every reading agent it is a failure?
If so, then you have a rather loose definition of "failure". If that's
not what you mean, then you need to clarify your meaning substantially.
You do understand that while display of message (whether a Usenet article
or any other type of Internet Text Message) content is an essential
part of the *application*, not *all* message content is part of the
*protocol* -- or maybe you don't understand that? If you need clarification
on that matter, please say so.
> The "Re: " contains information -- it says that the Subject was inherited
> (give or take some minor changes)
It does not contain the information that you claim that it contains:
Subject: Re: is an abominable hack
appearing in an article which is not a followup most certainly does *NOT*
"say[...] that the Subject was inherited" or anything remotely like that.
If a followup agent preparing a followup to that article presents the same
Subject field to the followup poster, who then places double-quote marks
around "Re:", any "information" in the unquoted text has been removed by
that followup poster.
> and this information is used.
So this non-existent information (really a misinterpretation) is (ab)used --
for what (other than display or display-related processing) you haven't been
able to say. And somehow this "information" gets from the followup agent to
some other reading agent even though the poster has elided it (which he is
explicitly permitted to do)? WTF?