From: Nick Boalch (n.g.boalch@durham.ac.uk)
Date: Sat May 01 2004 - 13:57:03 CDT
Bruce Lilly wrote:
> Since you have not addressed any of the substantive issues, no.
> It is absolutely mind-boggling that you state that you have
> "tried to take their comments on board" when your proposed text
> is littered with the term "back-reference", which both John and
> I have pointed out is meaningless in the context of readers and
> reading agents (i.e. as you have used it).
I think perhaps you fail to understand the nature of compromise.
Hopefully you will be able to accept that all of the following points are true:
(1) Use of "Re: " to initialize the Subject-header of followups is
widespread and current behaviour on Usenet.
(1.1) When "Re: " is used in this way, it can be referred to as
a 'back-reference'.
(1.1.1) Other strings are sometimes seen being used as
back-references; however, their use causes lots
of problems for followup agents constructing
Subject-headers according to current practice.
(1.2) However, it is problematic for agents confronted with a
given Subject-header to decide with 100% certainty what
constitutes a back-reference and what doesn't.
(2) Subject-header-initial "Re: " is used by some reading agents to
sort messages for display to readers.
(2.1) A better way to sort messages for display is to use the
References-header.
Do you accept all of those points? If not, I don't believe we'll ever manage
to come up with a wording that you won't nitpick somehow.
If you do, perhaps we can move on to three more points:
(1) Some people on this mailing list note that use of "Re: " is common
and familiar to readers, and want to mandate its use in the
initialization of the Subject-header of followups.
(2) Some people on this mailing list think that mandating use of "Re: "
conflicts with the unstructured nature of the Subject-header.
(3) Most people are fed up to the back teeth of the whole thing and
desperately want to move on.
We do not appear able to reconcile viewpoints (1) and (2), so the ONLY COURSE
OF ACTION LEFT OPEN TO US is to produce a text that steers a middle course.
I think this is what the text I have proposed does. It explains the situation,
covering all the points above, and leaves the decision about whether to
prepend "Re: " automatically to the implementors of followup agents.
My proposed text does not deprecate use of "Re: ", as you would prefer,
because this WG has not been able to come to consensus about doing so. It does
not mandate the use of "Re: ", as I would prefer, because this WG has not been
able to come to consensus about doing so. It uses the term 'back-reference'
because that is convenient. If you don't like that term, perhaps you'd care to
suggest another text -- but you will have to make concessions from your
position, as I have done, and not refer to things that the WG has proved
unable to come to consensus on.
The only thing that I find "absolutely mind-boggling" is your absolute refusal
to alter your position one iota for the sake of getting off this issue and
moving on. I am beginning to get to the stage where I think we should just
start to ignore you because you have stopped contributing anything useful and
started being just an irritating, repetitive obstruction to progress.
Cheers,
N.