Actually, if the link points to a message/rfc822 resource, won't it be
harder to find the other messages in the thread than if the link points
to a text/html page with hyperlinks?
obviously it depends on the html page with hyperlinks. there are a lot
of poorly designed archives out there.
the point is, if the fact that the resource is a message is lost, it
really cannot be handled correctly. you no longer have a message, you
have a translation of a message into text.
it's too bad that we don't have a mailbox access protocol that handles
threads well. maybe we need yet another IMAP extension.
On the other hand, it's easier to
reply to a message if it's given in message/rfc822 form (or at least,
it
could be, with a little browser support). Maybe it would be best for
the Archived-At: field to point to a text/html page which in turn links
to a message/rfc822 version of the same message.
no, I doubt it. once something is html, it's really not reasonable to
associate special semantics with it.
the client and server could do http content negotiation, but that only
works for http.
After all, if I already have a copy of the message with the
archived-at field, why would I want to download it?
You probably wouldn't, but regardless of what data type the
Archived-At:
field points at, it will make citing that message easier.
agreed. I just don't think I'd want to cite _a message_ as often as
I'd want to cite _the context of a message_.