From: Bruce Lilly (blilly@erols.com)
Date: Mon Mar 15 2004 - 17:36:25 CST
J.B.Moreno wrote:
> On 3/14/04 4:03 PM, Bruce Lilly at <blilly@erols.com> wrote:
>>That still lacks substance. Moreover, it doesn't address the fact of
>>prior use, dating back to RFC 561. The message header field name
>>registry is about to become a reality, and that very strongly discourages
>>the same field name from being used in different protocols with
>>different meanings. Now if you want to go back to "Title",...
>
>
> Prior usage?!?
>
> You are aruging prior usage? When followingup the Subject is prefixed with
> "Re: " -- that is prior usage. Goes back to at least '81. That's a lot of
> prior usage.
Yes, I'm talking about prior usage -- of the Subject field as an unstructured
field, which goes back to RFC 561 in 1973. If you want a structured field,
pick a new name (or reuse Title, which has been abandoned).
> As for the registry -- fine, everyone else can use our definition, it's what
> they *do* even if it's not how they define it.
The definition for the Subject field is going to be RFC 2822's definition.
The fact is that we will be obliged to use that definition for the Subject
field. You have zero chance of changing that fact; your time and effort
would be better spent tilting at windmills.
> It's part of saying that it's a followup. It has a defined meaning (that
> the Subject wasn't created fresh just for this post).
That argument has already been debunked. An original article (i.e. not
a followup) can also start with "Re: ".
> How one could think that it's not part of the syntax is beyond me. Your
> argument against it being part of the syntax seems to boil down to 2822 says
> the Subject can't have a syntax.
WTF? "[C]an't have a syntax"?!? What is that supposed to mean?
> The decision to read an article or not is sometimes based upon the correct
> usage of "Re: " -- so we need to tell the authors what is correct, so that
> they can have their clients behave correctly.
There is no single "correct" use. "Re:" can correctly appear at the
start of the Subject field in a message which is not a followup.
>>>>>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
>>>
>>>What does that have to do with anything? Possibly it's blasphemous as well,
>>>it's there, it's used, you don't like it, tough.
>>
>>The example Subject field line was *NOT* "inherited" -- it appears in an
>>article which is not a followup. Ergo your claim about what "Re" means
>>is false.
>
>
> Infailibility is *NOT* a requirement of any header field.
It is a requirement for "knowledge" and "information" (though not for
"guess" or "assumption"). Your claim about "Re" containing "information"
is false.
>>Well not to put too fine a point on it, but the guy who *assumed*
>>(incorrectly) that "'Re" says that the Subject was inherited" is
>>the someone who screwed up. An incorrect assumption isn't
>>"information" -- it might well be "mistaken", but that's another
>>matter entirely.
>
>
> And if I write a newsreader that creates a References header for ever post,
> using a random message-id from a random group -- does that make the software
> that "assume" that the posts made with my newsreader are followups to those
> random articles mistaken?
Such a newsreader would not be compliant with the Usefor draft. We're
discussing what should be in the draft regarding compliant articles
generated and used by compliant agents. A non-compliant newsreader
is irrelevant to the syntax and semantics document.
> The fact of the matter is, "Re: " is less error prone than the References
> header is in *practice* as opposed to theory.
If you wish to discuss the requirements in the draft regarding
References, by all means do so. Now we're discussing Subject and
"Re" provisions of the draft. What happens with broken software
regarding References is largely irrelevant.
>>>>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?
>>>
>>>If he removes it, then *that* information is conveyed!!!!
>>
>>But you can't tell whether it was never there or if it was removed!
>
>
> Only in the sense that you can't tell a truth from a lie, or corrupted data
> from uncorrupted without verifying the facts.
And there's no way to "verify[...] the facts".
> Absent bad software or user intervention, a Subject that doesn't start with
> "Re: " was created specifically to refer to the contents of that post,
No, not always.
> a Subject that *does* start with "Re: " wasn't,
No, not always.
> it was in whole or in part
> inherited from the article of which it is a followup.
No, because (a) it might not *be* a followup, and (b) it might
have been manually entered with no content from a predecessor even
if it is a followup.
>>>The poster can really only "remove" the information by putting in "Re: "
>>>when he shouldn't
>>
>>If the presence of "Re" conveys some "information", and that "Re" is
>>removed, then presumably that "information" is removed (without
>>"putting in" anything).
>
>
> The "Re: " is a negative symbol -- it's removal creates a positive, not
> nothing.
What on Earth do you mean by "creates a positive"?