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Re: Adding [ietf] considered harmful

2003-12-18 14:40:15

Keith-

Putting [foo] in the subject header is just another example of this
trend.  Sure, it might be useful to people with dysfunctional MUAs,
and there are a lot of those people out there. There were once a lot
of people whose MUAs couldn't do "reply all", too.

This is just wrong.

"From" lines and "Reply-to" and whatever are headers that are meant to
be processed by computers.  So, you can say all you want about how dumb
MUAs do or do not process these (and how intermediate mail servers
should keep their mits off).  Now, humans use these lines, too.  So,
call them dual use.

The subject line, on the other hand, is just for people.  Sure we can
make programs and filters grok them to classify mail if there is some
standard format (e.g., i-d actions).  But, fundementally subject lines
are for humans, not computers.  So, comparing subject line munging to
reply-to munging seems to me to pretty much apples and oranges.

You might read the above as supporting your point that we should not add
"[ietf]" to subject lines because subject lines are not for computers
(or "dysfunctional MUAs") to process.  However, I think the correct
interpretation is that it is OK for the mail server to add these tags
**and** they may aid the entities that the subject line is actually for
in the first place (humans).  Hence, they are fine.

allman


(I cannot actually believe I am sending a non-snide comment in this
thread.  Someone should slap me.  I read through the whole thread last
night.  Every message was dumberer than the previous one (probably
including this one!).  I was literally laughing out loud.  I cannot
believe we are even having such a dumbass debate.  But, it was like a
wreck on the highway and I could not stop rubber-necking.  If we have
this much trouble about 6 characters in the subject line then we might
as well forget that problem statement thingy.  Really.)