RE: A mailing list protocol

[Dave Cridland <[e-mail]>]

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.