From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: Wed May 12 2004 - 09:54:48 CDT
In <20040506200025.GF28824@tagseth-trd.consultit.no> Eivind Tagseth <eivindt@multinet.no> writes:
>* Charles Lindsey <chl@clerew.man.ac.uk> [2004-05-06 12:00:07 +0000]:
>> No it directs the followup agent to prepare a 'default' subject (with or
>> without "Re: "). After that, the user can override, so it would be
>> perfectly in order for the followup agent to prompt the user with "please
>> supply an appropriate subject; if you do not do so, then here is the
>> default that will be used". It could even provide a "click here to use the
>> default" button, to ensure that the user took some positive action one way
>> or the other.
>What about followup-agents without user interfaces? Some people post
>multipart-messages (patch-sets, FAQ documents, etc) as articles of
>the same thread (to make it easier for users to mark all parts
>read/deleted). Behaviour like that could easily be automated by
>scripts/plugins. Such a followup-agent would actually violate the
>spec with the current wording. It seems as if we're now specifying
>user interface issues in USEFOR, while they're clearly part of USEAGE.
If a user creates a post (perhaps even a followup) manually using vi or
telnet, or if he writes a script to automate the process, then it is his
responsibility to follow the rules laid down for posting and/or followup
agents. If he (or his script) knows in advance that a new subject is going
to be generated, then there is obviously no point in going through the
motions of creating a 'default' subject that will never be needed.
I think these unusual situations are covered by the first paragraph of
section 8 which states that you don't need to follow the various steps in
the order given, just so long as the overall effect achieved is the same
as if you had done so.
-- 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