Re: Draft section_5.02.03

Charles Lindsey <chl <at> clw.cs.man.ac.uk> wrote:

> I am now back in normal operation, and have made some progress on
> section_6. But in the meantime, to keep you happy, here is section_5.
> Most of the changes arise directly from discussions on this list. I
> still need to know, however, whether we will permit path-identities to
> include '[' and ']'. I no longer encourage their use around IP addresses
> (Russ asked for that) but does that mean we should forbid the practice?
> 
> There follows the new section, and then the diffs. It will appear on the
> landfield site presently.
> 
> 
-snip-
> 5.4.  Subject
> 
>    The Subject header contains a short string identifying the topic of
>    the message. This is an inheritable header (see ...) to be copied
>    into the Subject header of any followup, in which case the new
>    header-content SHOULD then start with the string "Re: " (a "back
>    reference") followed by the contents of the pure-subject of the
>    precursor. Any leading "Re: " in the pure-subject MUST be stripped.

Is there any reason to use "SHOULD" instead of "MUST"?  Doing so would
allow us to drop the section on using localized version, or at least
turn it into a note which is what it really is.

-snip- 
>    Agents SHOULD NOT depend on nor enforce the use of back references
>    by followup agents.

What exactly does this mean -- and which Agent?  Posting, reading,
followup, injecting, relaying?

It looks like it should mean either posting/injecting/followup --
except for the "depend" part which would be a reading agent.

If it's an attempt to say that the header is under the control of the
user with some minor restrictions (articles without a references header
can't start with 'Re: ', it must have some content), it fails miserably
IMO.

--

-- 
John Moreno