(Replying to some comments in the bug
<http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62429> and adding some more
arguments.)
First, let's not turn this discussion into the old reply above/below
discussion. For the sake of this bug, let's just assume that some users
do quote below (even if IMO wrongly). I still think that there are
enought good reasons not to fix this bug in that case, see below.
> Surely it is a simple code change
This bug is not (only) about the amount of work required to implement
this. We are discussing, if it's the right thing to give the option at all.
> I'm not sure where is says that "--" is to keep sigs away from
messages. I
> can't find anything on the email rfc's. Is this a Netscape thing?
No. It is an internet standard to remove signatures (defined below), and
Mozilla follows it.
> allows readers to easily identify the owners of a
> message within a multimessage forward
Proper attribution is the reponsibility of the qouting/forwarding UA.
There are strong (and IMO prohibitive) reasons why this bug is a very
bad idea:
* As defined by generally accepted internet standards, a signature
is anything incl. and after "-- " on its own line.
So, if we fix the "bug", the quote would be part of the sig, not
below the sig (since there can't be anything below the sig). In
other words, the message would be malformed.
As it is our goal to track standards as good as possible, this is
a clear-cut reason for wontfix.
* As said, many mailers will remove the sig (as defined above)
during reply, and some might not even display the sig during
reading, if the user chooses so. So, in many cases (e.g. with
Mozilla), it will be impossible or very hard to quote the quote.
That alone is for me reason enought to wontfix this bug. Also,
some readers might not see the quote at all anymore, although they
just wanted to (and did) hide the sig.
* Many other UAs (IMO wrongly) do not remove the sig during reply.
With sigs above the reply, it will mean that they are scattered
thoughout the quotes and hard to remove. If they are added below
the quotes, they will all accumulate at the end of the msg.
* The sig is arguably less important than the quoted msg, because
the sig is always the same and usually meta-data, while the quote
is directly relevant to the content. The rationale of quote below
is exactly that the most important stuff comes first.
