I think it would be good to address quoting and
over-quoting in a new
protocol. If we can address over-quoting by embedding a
pointer to the
original message rather than the original message, that
should save a
good deal of bandwith and it makes it very simple to
configure a user
agent to disregard this and not display it. For regular
quoting this
gets a bit more complicated, but it's worth the effort as
this way we
get to cryptographically protect the quoted text.
Indeed. I was thinking about this before. If you were to
allow for being able to successfully pull back the original
message and check the signature on it, you would be able to
establish that when quoting you, I was in fact quoting you...
Two ways of solving this using XML:
<email id="55" answers="42">How about two o'clock?</email>
<email id="42">Any suggestions?</email>
<email id="13" answers="55">Sounds good</email>
<email id="13">
<email id="55">
<email id="42">
Any suggestions?
</email>
How about two o'clock?
</email>
Sounds good
</email>
Both methods are sufficient to identify who is answering what in which
email. I would recommend the second solution, as the structure of the
discussion is evident from the structure of the email, instead of having
to be inferred after reading all <email>s. Also, it allows for the
splitting of emails without ambiguity of which part of an email is an
answer to which part in another. Example:
<email messageId="13">
<email messageId="55">
<email messageId="42">
Any suggestions?
</email>
How about two o'clock?
</email>
Sounds good
</email>
<email messageId="13">
<email messageId="55">
What will we be eating?
</email>
Dunno. How about Spaghetti Bolognese?
</email>
Yours sincerely,
--
Victor Engmark
Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum viditar - What is said in latin,
sounds profound