Subject: Re: [Last-Call] New Version Notification for draft-crocker-inreply-react-07.txt

From: "Randall Gellens" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2021 16:17:06 -0800

I'm just curious why the choice for a reaction to be a body part rather 
than an attribute on the In-Reply-To header field?  For compactness and 
simplicity, a new attribute on the In-Reply-To header field would seem 
to offer some advantages.  It also avoids silly states such as a 
reaction body part in a message that lacks an In-Reply-To header field.  
I thought perhaps the draft might include some background explanation 
for this design choice, but if it's there I missed it.

--Randall

On 18 Jan 2021, at 16:08, Dave Crocker wrote:

> -------- Forwarded Message --------
> Subject: New Version Notification for 
> draft-crocker-inreply-react-07.txt
> Date: Mon, 18 Jan 2021 14:52:22 -0800
> From: [email-masked]
> To: R. Signes <[email-masked]>, Dave Crocker 
> <[email-masked]>, Ned Freed <[email-masked]>, Ricardo Signes 
> <[email-masked]>
>
>
> A new version of I-D, draft-crocker-inreply-react-07.txt
> has been successfully submitted by Dave Crocker and posted to the
> IETF repository.
>
> Name:		draft-crocker-inreply-react
> Revision:	07
> Title:		React: Indicating Summary Reaction to a Message
> Document date:	2021-01-18
> Group:		Individual Submission
> Pages:		9
> URL: 
> https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-crocker-inreply-react-07.txt
> Status: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-crocker-inreply-react/
> Htmlized: 
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-crocker-inreply-react
> Htmlized:       
> https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-crocker-inreply-react-07
> Diff: https://www.ietf.org/rfcdiff?url2=draft-crocker-inreply-react-07
>
> Abstract:
>    The popularity of social media has led to user comfort with easily
>    signaling basic reactions to an author's posting, such as with a
>    'thumbs up' or 'smiley' graphic.  This specification permits a
>    similar facility for Internet Mail.
>
>
>
>
> Please note that it may take a couple of minutes from the time of 
> submission
> until the htmlized version and diff are available at tools.ietf.org.
>
> The IETF Secretariat
>
>
>
> -- 
> Dave Crocker
> Brandenburg InternetWorking
> bbiw.net
>
> -- 
> last-call mailing list
> [email-masked]
> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/last-call

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2021 19:23:53 -0800

On 3/2/2021 4:17 PM, Randall Gellens wrote:
> than an attribute on the In-Reply-To header field?

Randy,

This was a matter of significant discussion on the ietf-822 list, and 
the current draft is fundamentally different from my original 
submission, as a result of that discussion.  My original spec was 
problematic in a number of ways, some of which had been an itch in my 
brain that I hadn't adequately perceived.

The decisive "I could have had a V8" moment came with Ned's posting on 
21 Oct (6:43am, by my MUA) titled: "Review of and suggested changes for 
draft-crocker-inreply-react-01.txt".

Really, it my reaction(...) was that this was   m  u  c  h   better than 
what I'd designed.

d/

---

From: "Randall Gellens" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 02 Mar 2021 20:23:11 -0800

Thank you very much, Dave, for pointing me at the exact discussion of 
this topic.

I think Ned's analysis was excellent.  I wonder about the conclusion 
that a mechanism where some (upgraded) email thread participants see 
each other's reactions and (non-upgraded) others don't is worse than a 
mechanism that ties reaction to replies.  For example, if something such 
as message disposition were to be extended for reactions, would that be 
worse than the non-reply reply?

--Randall

On 2 Mar 2021, at 19:23, Dave Crocker wrote:

>> I'm just curious why the choice for a reaction to be a body part 
>> rather than an attribute on the In-Reply-To header field?
>
>
> Randy,
>
> 21 Oct (6:43am, by my MUA) titled: "Review of and suggested changes 
> for draft-crocker-inreply-react-01.txt".
>
> Really, it my reaction(...) was that this was   m  u  c  h   better 
> than what I'd designed.
>
>
> d/
>
> -- 
> Dave Crocker

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2021 20:29:31 -0800

On 3/2/2021 8:23 PM, Randall Gellens wrote:
> mechanism that ties reaction to replies. 

That's one of the reasons this design is superior to my original.  The 
original would typically suffer the inequity you describe.  The current 
one out to result in everyone have the images appear (assuming any 
ability to process emojis) but some would not have them specially 
process as been in reply.

> For example, if something such 

not sure what you mean.

d/

---

From: Martin J. Dürst <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2021 15:45:09 +0900

> draft-crocker-inreply-react-01.txt".

The actual mail can be found at 
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf-822/pILLpCxkxqGaypthzTdOh_eEsgU
(Archived-At: is your friend).

Regards,   Martin.

---

From: "Randall Gellens" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 03 Mar 2021 09:26:22 -0800

On 2 Mar 2021, at 20:29, Dave Crocker wrote:

>> each other's reactions and (non-upgraded) others don't is worse than 
>> a mechanism that ties reaction to replies.
>
> original would typically suffer the inequity you describe.  The 
> current one out to result in everyone have the images appear (assuming 
> any ability to process emojis) but some would not have them specially 
>> For example, if something such as message disposition were to be 
>> extended for reactions, would that be worse than the non-reply reply?
>
> not sure what you mean.

I was making a comparison to the message disposition mechanism (RFC 
8098), where a message includes a Disposition-Notification-To header 
field soliciting disposition notifications, and recipients of that 
message may choose to send bodies of type "multipart/report; 
report-type=disposition-notification" containing a 
"message/disposition-notification" body part that indicates the action 
taken on the message (i.e., displayed, deleted, dispatched, processed).  
While this specific facility isn't used much in the open Internet due to 
privacy concerns, the general mechanism seems like it might be a close 
fit for a reaction mechanism.  It's a mechanism for sending 
meta-information about a message, not a reply.

Since I hadn't seen this draft before (entirely my fault), I was curious 
if there was consideration given to extending this mechanism or using a 
similar mechanism, where reactions are sent in a way that they aren't 
confusable with replies.

--Randall

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 2021 10:07:54 -0800

> similar mechanism, where reactions are sent in a way that they aren't 

But it /is/ a form of (or part of) a reply.

So, there were various discussions surrounding alternative roles or 
approaches -- some of which have been re-raised here -- but the current 
spec was generally deemed as navigation its role and the technical 
choices reasonably.

d/