In the immortal words of Sam Varshavchik ([EMAIL PROTECTED]):
> >
> >As a matter of abstract principle, I'm a little dubious about the idea
> >of an MUA arbitrarily munging subject lines outside of the user's
> >control.
> 
> It's not arbitrary.  

Sigh, a poor choice of words: I didn't mean that it was an
unconsidered decision, I meant that it was beyond the control of (and
nonobvious and unexpected behavior to) the end user.

> It's derived entirely from the header sorting 
> algorithm used by IMAP THREAD (which strips away all mailing list tags, 
> Re:-s (fwd)-s, and similar crap from the subject line, before sorting).
> ... which, again, is used for subject line sort in sqwebmail.

Makes perfect sense as a sorting criteria, I agree.  I'm just not
following your leap to the conclusion that my MUA should
non-optionally strip them out before sending mail out.

> There's enough precedent to deem [foo], Re:, (fwd), and other crap as 
> completely content-free fluff that needs to be get rid of, before doing 
> anything with the subject line.

You've never written an email with parentheses or brackets in the
subject line?  You would never expect a naive user to?

To me, this seems to violate the principle of least surprise to the user.

> >Also, what's the advantage of removing the bracketed text even when
> >replying to mailing lists?  
> 
> The recipient can immediately tell if the reply was sent privately, or to 
> the list.

Wouldn't visually tagging the message as list mail based on RFC2369
would be a better way of handling that question?

I don't think that stripping out brackets from the subject line is
necessarily useless or antisocial behavior; I just can't see any
arguement for not putting it under the control of the user or at least
the administrator.

-n

------------------------------------------------------------<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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editorial page is its occasional capacity to rise above the routine moral 
callousness of hack conservative punditry and attain a level of exquisite 
depravity normally reserved for villains in James Bond movies."
(--Johnathan Chait)
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