Jacob Palme wrote:
If the mail standards were developed anew with no need
for backwards compatibility, one might say that an
e-mail address should look like this:
<N:Göran(_at_)Müller(_dot_)de,I:Goran(_at_)Muller(_dot_)de>.
Only one of the two subfields N and I would then be
mandatory, and both should always reach the same
recipient.
Now, I am fully aware that something like I describe
above is not possible for backwards compatibility
reasons.
A named group may suffice where the syntax permits an address
rather than a single mailbox, e.g.:
Reply-To: Bruce Lilly: <blilly(_at_)erols(_dot_)com>,
<blilly(_at_)verizon(_dot_)net>;
[obviously the phrase could use RFC 2047 encoded-words, and
an IDN could be used in any of the group mailboxes] Named
groups have been part of message syntax since RFC 724, so there
are no backwards compatibility issues (there may be broken
implementations of parsers, but that's a different matter).