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Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field

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Jon Ribbens wrote:

> On 2015-12-21, Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I can't specifically recall if I've used any MUA other than Gmail that
>> even attempts threading email messages.
> 
> Also: Thunderbird, The Bat!, Eudora, Gnus, Outlook, Outlook Express,
> Pegasus Mail, Pine, Apple Mail, Windows Live Mail, Yahoo Mail,
> Evolution, SquirrelMail, KMail, Windows Mail, etc.

Yes, of course.
 
> Trying to suggest that MUAs should never look at the Subject line for
> threading is, unfortunately, ridiculous.

No, it is what the Internet message standard says instead:

,-<http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.4>
| 
| 3.6.4.  Identification Fields
| 
| Though listed as optional in the table in section 3.6, every message
| SHOULD have a "Message-ID:" field.  Furthermore, reply messages
| SHOULD have "In-Reply-To:" and "References:" fields as appropriate
| and as described below.
| 
| The "Message-ID:" field contains a single unique message identifier.
| The "References:" and "In-Reply-To:" fields each contain one or more
| unique message identifiers, optionally separated by CFWS.

(“SHOULD” in an RFC means: “do as I say unless you can give me a very good 
reason not to do it”.  See RFC 2119 for details.)

vs.

,-<http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5322#section-3.6.5>
| 
| 3.6.5.  Informational Fields
| 
| The informational fields are all optional.  The "Subject:" and
| "Comments:" fields are unstructured fields as defined in section
| 2.2.1, and therefore may contain text or folding white space. […]

> Yes, in theory it shouldn't be necessary

It is not.

> but in practice enough people are using poor clients that don't provide
> enough context in the proper headers that it can't be avoided.

That Internet communication is made more difficult for *all* because a 
*perceived* majority of *perceived* clients is broken, is putting upside 
down the good Internet principle of “be conservative in what to send, 
liberal in what to receive”.

Those b0rked clients should either be fixed at once or not be used, period.

Instead, in practice, the Python mailing list software is b0rked since I 
know of the mailing list’s/newsgroups’ existence (several years ago): it is 
b0rked in the regard that its distributor does not consider that it is also 
posted to a Usenet newsgroup where articles require a References header 
field to be properly threaded.  Incidentally, that References header field 
is, in the absence of an In-Reply-To header field, used by hybrid e 
mail/NetNews agents such as Thunderbird, in full compliance with the NetNews 
message standard:

,-<http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5536#section-3>
| 
| 3.  News Header Fields
| 
|    The following news header fields extend those defined in Section 3.6
|    of [RFC5322]:
| 
| […]
| 3.2.10.  References
| 
|    The References header field is the same as that specified in Section
|    3.6.4 of [RFC5322], with the added restrictions detailed above in
|    Section 2.2 and those listed below: […]

One could kill two birds with one stone here by fixing this, but it is not 
done.  Why?

> And, yes, fixing the mail clients of "everybody else in the world"
> might be a lovely idea but it is a little impractical to implement.

I find your argument strewn with gaping defects in logic.

-- 
PointedEars

Twitter: @PointedEars2
Please do not cc me. / Bitte keine Kopien per E-Mail.

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Thread

How to ignore error with anon-zero exit status Ganesh Pal <ganesh1pal@gmail.com> - 2015-12-20 23:00 +0530
  Ignore error with non-zero exit status (was: How to ignore error with anon-zero exit status) Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-20 22:22 +0100
    Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status (was: How to ignore error with anon-zero exit status) Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-12-21 08:56 +1100
      Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-20 23:46 +0100
        Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-12-21 10:09 +1100
          Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-21 08:51 +0100
            Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-12-21 12:58 +0000
              Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-21 14:19 +0100
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-12-22 00:23 +1100
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-21 15:05 +0100
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-12-22 01:11 +1100
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-21 15:19 +0100
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Mark Lawrence <breamoreboy@yahoo.co.uk> - 2015-12-21 16:07 +0000
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-21 23:30 +0100
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2015-12-21 11:30 -0500
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-21 23:27 +0100
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2015-12-22 10:32 +1100
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Terry Reedy <tjreedy@udel.edu> - 2015-12-21 18:53 -0500
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-22 13:17 +0100
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-12-22 11:05 +1100
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2015-12-21 17:17 -0700
                Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2015-12-22 11:25 +1100
        Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2015-12-21 13:30 -0700
        Meaning and purpose of the Subject field (was: Ignore error with non-zero exit status) Ben Finney <ben+python@benfinney.id.au> - 2015-12-22 07:58 +1100
        Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field (was: Ignore error with non-zero exit status) Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2015-12-21 14:16 -0700
          Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field (was: Ignore error with non-zero exit status) Jon Ribbens <jon+usenet@unequivocal.co.uk> - 2015-12-21 21:44 +0000
            Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-21 23:55 +0100
            Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field (was: Ignore error with non-zero exit status) Steven D'Aprano <steve@pearwood.info> - 2015-12-22 10:14 +1100
              Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field (was: Ignore error with non-zero exit status) Jon Ribbens <jon+usenet@unequivocal.co.uk> - 2015-12-21 23:24 +0000
                Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field (was: Ignore error with non-zero exit status) Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2015-12-21 16:57 -0700
                Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field (was: Ignore error with non-zero exit status) Tim Chase <python.list@tim.thechases.com> - 2015-12-22 09:56 -0600
              Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field (was: Ignore error with non-zero exit status) Cameron Simpson <cs@zip.com.au> - 2015-12-22 14:36 +1100
              Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field Random832 <random832@fastmail.com> - 2015-12-21 23:22 -0500
                Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-22 13:26 +0100
              Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field (was: Ignore error with non-zero exit status) Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2015-12-22 15:17 +0000
                Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field (was: Ignore error with non-zero exit status) Ian Kelly <ian.g.kelly@gmail.com> - 2015-12-22 08:28 -0700
                Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field (was: Ignore error with non-zero exit status) Grant Edwards <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2015-12-22 22:32 +0000
        Re: Meaning and purpose of the Subject field (was: Ignore error with non-zero exit status) Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@ix.netcom.com> - 2015-12-21 16:55 -0500
    Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status (was: How to ignore error with anon-zero exit status) Ganesh Pal <ganesh1pal@gmail.com> - 2015-12-21 08:22 +0530
      Re: Ignore error with non-zero exit status Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2015-12-21 08:54 +0100

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