Re: #1029: USEFOR 3.2.2 References: Should comments be a MUST NOT? (fwd)

[Bruce Lilly <blilly@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu June 30 2005 19:04, Frank Ellermann wrote:

> We have no general rule stating that unnecessary comments
> in a field not designed to be displayed are a stupid idea.

To borrow a statement from another list, we also don't have a
general rule against drinking gasoline.  Sometimes the obvious
does NOT need to be stated.

> IIRC 2822 only says "if you must do this use at least the
> end of a syntactical unit" (or similar), that doesn't help
> for a <msg-id-list>, the only unit in sight is a <msg-id>.

2822 says (in accordance with RFC 2234 sect. 3.1):
  msg-id          =       [CFWS] "<" id-left "@" id-right ">" [CFWS]
which explicitly says where CFWS may appear.  BTW, there is no msg-id-list,
-list rules usually imply comma separators, and there are none in
References or In-Reply-To.  822/2822 specify that comments are semantically
equivalent to a space character, and a space character is a typical
separator between msg-ids.
 
> Without a general rule removing the entire text (your 4)
> is not among my preferences.

I find it hard to get worked up about a lack of second-hand
interoperability problems related to comments which are rarely
inserted in a References field.  The only UAs I know of that do that
are the ones that used to put (badly broken) phrase syntax (which is
MUST NOT generate in 2822) in References fields.  Those broken
messages are still around, and in the grand scheme of things a
you-don't-have-to-parse-obs-references-because-MUST=MAY contortion is
going to do a great deal more harm than a comment.  Well, that's the
law of unintended consequences for you.