Subject: Re: [Asrg] 6. Proposals - Legal - Subject labelling (?)

From: mathew <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2003 21:39:01 -0500

On Nov 26, 2003, at 9:15, Jon Kyme wrote:
> it's worth noting some of the likely constraints:
> The label should be short
> The label should be near (at) the start of the subject
> The label shouldn't be utterly opaque to the non-technical reader.
> The established use of the Subject should be preserved.

Sorry I'm really late on this... but I've always thought that the whole 
"ADV" in the subject line thing was a really bad idea. It invites 
sloppy implementation, leading to all kinds of legitimate subject lines 
suddenly and mysteriously getting bounced.  e.g. "[sec-adv] Security 
advisory"(*), "Interactive fiction sources ColossalCave.adv", ...

I think any kind of "ADV" flag belongs in a header defined for the 
purpose, so it won't collide with existing use of the subject line no 
matter how inevitably poorly client developers implement filtering. If 
the law allows that the flag be in a new header, I'd favor running with 
that approach.

mathew
[ (*) real tag used by a real mailing list ]

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From: "Jon Kyme" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Dec 2003 09:46:55 +0000

> the law allows that the flag be in a new header, I'd favor running with 

Gosh, you must have been thinking about this really long and hard :-)
The problem is that some *legislators* are moving towards requiring that
Email marketing messages be clearly labelled as such. "Clearly" is either
going to require a rewrite of all MUAs so that our new header is displayed
by default, or it's going to be a requirement that the label is in one of
the currently commonly displayed headers. *Subject* is an obvious place for
such a label since this field is already widely used to give a brief
summary of the content of the message.

Given that subject labelling may be a (for some) a *legal* requirement. It
might not be a bad idea to standardise a mechanism for doing it, EVEN
THOUGH we don't like it. So as to reduce the risks of "sloppy
implementation" and accidental collisions that you correctly identify.

On a related point: I'm in favour of safety standards for bungee-jump
operators, since even tho' I intend never to be a customer, I may walk
under one.

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