ietf-822
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Multi-message reply and "References:"

2003-06-20 06:02:22

Nathaniel Borenstein writes:
Presumably trn does this by inference when possible, but I can't believe it is *always* possible, depending on which parts of the thread remain available. One of the questions here is how general a solution we are trying to build. -- Nathaniel

It isn't always possible, but IMO that's mostly because many clients generate contradictory threading information. For example, one well-known e-mail client is fond of writing references fields like this one:

References: <a(_at_)b(_dot_)com> <c(_at_)d(_dot_)org> <e(_at_)f(_dot_)org> 
<a(_at_)b(_dot_)com>

Generating correct references isn't hard (in the reply-to-one-message case), and people still get it wrong. It seems to me that a suggested improvement would have to be significantly simpler, or else people will get it wrong, too. And how can something be much simpler than the references scheme?

--Arnt