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RE: A mailing list protocol

2012-12-06 11:25:17
On Tue Dec  4 22:19:14 2012, George, Wes wrote:
Is there an IETF standard format for handling inline quote replies? Is it just not implemented in certain mail clients?

RFC 3676? (As used here).

It is admittedly primarily useful in simple replies rather than quoting (and therefore attribution) from multiple parent messages; however that's by far the common case. A further specifcation to annotate attribution would be possible, though in principle that would be usefully based on the References field.

Browbeating people into changing mail clients will be less than effective, but something that systematically makes it easier to see who is responsible for what comment in a multi-person thread regardless of source email client would be welcome. While we're at it, we could maybe implement a fix for the common problem of mangled subject lines that make it very difficult to sort by thread, and add a server-side filter that removes the legal bilgewater automatically added to some outgoing messages (example will follow in this very message) before sending it to the rest of the list recipients, etc.

I've not really had a problem with searching for the subject root, in general, but I'd be happy to agree despite inexperience with the issue that there are standards for reply-mangling of subjects and we should note that.

My more common problem is a lack of in-reply-to or references fields that I can use for in-thread navigation, which I find particularly useful.

In general, there are a number of technical standards and protocols which are useful, or essential, for IETF participation; documenting these in a single location would seem beneficial.

Dave.

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