Subject: sieve vacation draft, really

From: Tim Showalter <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Feb 1999 15:40:08 -0500

Hi.  This message is nearly exactly the same as my previous message with 
the addition of the vacation draft.

This is a second stab at a vacation extension.  Please take a look at it.

Lowlights: I'm not satisfied with section 4.  If someone can suggest
good wording for both the base document and section 4 in this document
that makes action interactions clear, I'd really appreciate it.
Otherwise the interactions are going to be very badly defined and
implemented.

Tim

-- 
Tim Showalter <[email-masked]>

---

From: "J.D. Falk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:04:55 -0800

On 02/15/99, Tim Showalter <[email-masked]> wrote: 

>    The ":days" argument is used to specify the period in which addresses
>    are kept and are not responded to, and is always specified in days.
>    The minimum and default value is 7.

	Apologies if this has already been threshed out, but why was
	seven days chosen as the minimum?  I'm sure we'll see quite a
	few implementations which choose to ignore that.

	Perhaps it SHOULD be seven days, and MUST be at least one?

-- 
J.D. Falk <[email-masked]>                     Got clue?  http://www.ispf.com/
Special Agent In Charge (Abuse Issues)
Critical Path, Inc.

---

From: Tim Showalter <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Feb 1999 20:03:10 -0500

> Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 13:04:55 -0800
> From: "J.D. Falk" <[email-masked]>
> 

Actually, I have no idea why I chose seven days.

I have no problem making seven the default and making one the minimum,
although this is probably one of those things that should be
site-configurable.

How about a paragraph that says if the value is less than the
site-defined minimum, then the site-defined minimum value is used?

Tim

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 18:13:48 -0700

> although this is probably one of those things that should be

7 days rule seems strange for me as well. This value should be
site-configurable.

> site-defined minimum, then the site-defined minimum value is used?

This would be fine for me.

--
Regards,
Alexey Melnikov

---

From: Tim Showalter <[email-masked]>
Date: 15 Feb 1999 20:22:30 -0500

There are two things I realized I failed to do with this vacation draft.

When I distributed the previous version, someone wanted it such that
headers could be optionally specified.  I forgot and dropped the ball on 
this one.  Do folks still want that?

When I was talking about this version, I suggested adding the language
for the reply.  I withdraw my suggestion, because that data can be
encoded in the UTF-8 of the body (forgive me, I can't remember the RFC
number that published that Unicode Consortium action), and that's the
right thing anyway.  I ignored the suggestion that the charset be
specified, based on the UTF-8-for-everyone theory, but if we wanted to
suggest a way for the interpreter to massage UTF-8 into something else,
that would be different.

Other things to consider include specifying Subject values for the reply.

---

From: Michael Salmon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 18:20:56 +0100

+----- On 15 Feb 1999 15:40:08 EST, Tim Showalter writes:
[...]
| The ":days" argument is used to specify the period in which addresses
| are kept and are not responded to, and is always specified in days.
| The minimum and default value is 7.
| 
| "Vacation" keeps track of all of the addresses that it has responded
| to in some period (as specified by the :days optional argument).  If
| vacation has not previously responded to this address within that
| time period, it sends the "reason" argument to the Return-Path
| address of the message that is being responded to.

Shouldn't :days have a maximum as well as a minimum? I could just image 
what might happen if I set :days to 1000000. I like the idea of site 
defined limits. Presumably one can have more than vacation statement in 
a script and if that is the case must all :days be the same? What 
happens if they aren't? Should the respondent lists be independent?

I think that having independent vacation messages should be allowed but 
that the effect of differing dates be implementation defendant. I also 
feel that it should be possible to clear the respondent lists so 
that new messages are distibuted.

| "Vacation" never responds to a message unless the user's email
| address is in the "To" or "Cc" line of the original message.
| Implementations are assumed to be able to know this information, but
| users may have additional addresses beyond the control of the local
| mail system.
[...]
| By mingling vacation with other rules, users can do something more
| selective.
| 
| Example:
| if header :contains "from" "[email-masked]" {
| forward "[email-masked]";
| } else {
| if header :contains ["to", "cc"] "[email-masked]" {
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^ I think that this is redundant as the test is implicit 
in vacation.

| vacation "Sorry, I'm away, I'll read your message when
| I get around to it.";
| }

/Michael

---

From: Tim Showalter <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 Feb 1999 16:50:57 -0500

> Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 18:20:56 +0100
> From: Michael Salmon <[email-masked]>

> Shouldn't :days have a maximum as well as a minimum?

Yes, added:

	The ":days" argument is used to specify the period in which
	addresses are kept and are not responded to, and is always
	specified in days.  The minimum value used for this parameter is
	1.  Sites MAY define a different minimum value.  Sites MAY also
	define a maximum days value, which MUST be greater than 7, and
	SHOULD be greater than 30.

and:

	If ":days" exceeds the site-defined maximum, the site-defined
	maximum is used instead.

> Presumably one can have more than vacation statement in a script and
> if that is the case must all :days be the same? What happens if they
> aren't? Should the respondent lists be independent?

What's the problem?

I don't have strong motivation for making multiple vacations in a single
script act specially, although I believe that a given script should only
send out a vacation message once.

> that the effect of differing dates be implementation defendant.

Why?

> I also feel that it should be possible to clear the respondent lists
> so that new messages are distibuted.

I oppose this on two grounds: first, how does one clear the respondant
lists?  Such things are very implementation dependant, and I'd rather
just not discuss them.  Second, Those features are in vacation for
safety reasons; earlier drafts had a command that did not have them
called "reply" that were removed for these reasons.

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 21:41:11 -0500

> This is a second stab at a vacation extension.  Please take a look at it.

The draft makes no mention of what the subject should set to for the
message sent back.

Suggestion #1:

	The subject is set to the characters "Re: " followed by the original
subject with all leading occurrences of the characters "Re: " stripped
off.

Suggestion #2:

	Add the optional argument :subject <string> to the grammar for the
command.

	The subject is set to the specified :subject string, if present.
Otherwise, the subject is set to the characters "Re: " followed by the
original subject with all leading occurrences of the characters "Re: "
stripped off.

I like the second suggestion better.

	Tony Hansen
	[email-masked]

---

From: "J.D. Falk" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 18:57:07 -0800

> I like the second suggestion better.

	Me too.  Options are good.

---

From: Ned Freed <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:08:09 -0800 (PST)

> The draft makes no mention of what the subject should set to for the

I agree that there needs to be an option to do this. People really want
to be able to set the subject on messages of this sort.

> I like the second suggestion better.

So do I.

				Ned

---

From: Tim Showalter <[email-masked]>
Date: 18 Feb 1999 22:12:43 -0500

> Date: Wed, 17 Feb 1999 22:08:09 -0800 (PST)
> From: Ned Freed <[email-masked]>

> > I like the second suggestion better.

I have used this exact text.  It may be a little vauge, but I'm not sure 
I can improve on it much.  If that isn't okay, please let me know.

---

From: Tim Showalter <[email-masked]>
Date: 18 Feb 1999 23:04:47 -0500

> Date: 18 Feb 1999 22:12:43 -0500
> From: Tim Showalter <[email-masked]>

> I can improve on it much.  If that isn't okay, please let me know.

actually, I didn't use that exact text, just the parts I liked.  The
text I added was

	Users can specify the subject of the reply with the ":subject"
	parameter.  If the :subject parameter is not supplied, then the
	subject is generated as follows: The subject is set to the
	characters "Re: " followed by the original subject with all
	leading occurances of the characters "Re: " stripped off.

---

From: Michael Salmon <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 09:47:33 +0100

+----- On 18 Feb 1999 23:04:47 EST, Tim Showalter writes:
| > Date: 18 Feb 1999 22:12:43 -0500
| > From: Tim Showalter <[email-masked]>
| 
| > > > 	The subject is set to the specified :subject string, if present.
| > > > Otherwise, the subject is set to the characters "Re: " followed by the
| > > > original subject with all leading occurrences of the characters "Re: "
| > > > stripped off.
| 
| > I have used this exact text.  It may be a little vauge, but I'm not sure 
| > I can improve on it much.  If that isn't okay, please let me know.
| 
| actually, I didn't use that exact text, just the parts I liked.  The
| text I added was
| 
| Users can specify the subject of the reply with the ":subject"
| parameter.  If the :subject parameter is not supplied, then the
| subject is generated as follows: The subject is set to the
| characters "Re: " followed by the original subject with all
| leading occurances of the characters "Re: " stripped off.

  I have noticed that there are are number of national variants to re:
in common use, in swedish it is sv: and I think german uses av:. I think
that using re: in replies is ok although it could be a site defined
parameter but that all leading short words ending in : should be
stripped.

/Michael

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 08:39:51 -0700

> parameter but that all leading short words ending in : should be

I don't like your idea. It was consensus in DRUMS mailing list that mail clients
must not generate anything except Re: in replies (However they are free to show it
as sv: or whatever).

--
Regards,
AMelnikov

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 11:26:10 -0500

> parameter but that all leading short words ending in : should be

This has been discussed extensively on the DRUMS list. The consensus
there is that the latin abbreviation "Re: " is the string that is to be
used on-the-wire for all replies, and that mail user agents (MUA's)
should display the string in whatever manner is appropriate for the
locale in use (sv:,aw:,etc.), but never transmit those other strings. (I
think I summarized that right.)

>From draft-ietf-drums-msg-fmt-07.txt, section 3.6.5: 
  ... The "Subject:" field is the most common
  and contains a short string identifying the topic of the message. When
  used in a reply, the field body MAY start with the string "Re: " (from
  the Latin "res", in the matter of) followed by the contents of the
  "Subject:" field body of the original message. If this is done, only
one
  instance of the literal string "Re: " ought to be used since use of
  other strings or more than one instance can lead to undesirable
  consequences.

I think it is best to stick to just stripping off the latin abbreviation
and not strip off anything else.

	Tony Hansen
	[email-masked]