So in that case, would a reasonable update to RFC 2369 be to impose a
character limit of 998 characters on list header fields, including the
List-Unsubscribe header field? ...
Now, if there was evidence that people are attempting to put huge
URLs in List-* headers and causing problems then there would be justification
for adding some text about it. But IMO it would still not rise to the level
of calling for an update to the specification.
The question that started this was an observation that some software does
a poor job of unfolding folded URLs in headers. That's clearly a quality
of implementation issue, like a lot of other issues in mail, and there is
no reason to believe that waving fingers at people who misimplement stuff
will make any difference. It's hardly the only place that unfolding URLs
doesn't work -- try copying and pasting a URL that some MUA helpfully
folded while quoting a message in a reply.
I suppose it would be nice to have some place to put advice like your life
will be easier if your URLs fit on one line, but standards track RFCs
doesn't seem like it.
Regards,
John Levine, johnl(_at_)taugh(_dot_)com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
PS to Peter: in case it's not obvious, I do appreciate your finding places
where the ABNF disagrees with the practice, even if we don't always agree
on what to do about it.
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