On Sun, Jan 13, 2002 at 09:43:40PM +0100, Chris Lilley wrote:
> On Saturday, January 12, 2002, 12:44:45 PM, Marck wrote:
> MDP> On 12 January 2002 at 08:43:26 +0100 (which was 07:43 where I live)
> MDP> Chris Lilley wrote to Jernej Simon?i? and made these points:
> 
> >> Where is the Re[n] converion defined (eg, some RFC or other) because
> >> my sysadmin has asked to to set The Bat! to not do that, on the
> >> grounds that RFC 822 does not list this convention.
> 
> MDP> That's not actually true. The RFC puts no constraint on the way
> MDP> Subject: header content is used.
> 
> My sysadmin quoted this from RFC 822, sec 3.6.5:

Actually, that's from RFC 2822, an updated version of RFC 822.
(2822 supercedes 822.)

>    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.
> 
> So thats a MAY for using "Re: " at all, but if you do then the MUA
> ought (which I would read as a SHOULD) to have only one of them.

Note "use of other strings ... can lead to undesirable consequences."

RFC 2822 makes it quite clear IMHO that 'Re: ' should be used,
and not 'RE: ', 'Re[2]: ' or some localized variant like 'Sv: '
(though MUAs should feel free to localize things when displaying
them to to users.)

I disagree with Jernej's assertion that the use of Re[2] is growing;
I see it only rarely and try to stomp it out whenever I see it. :)

-- 
Gerald Oskoboiny     http://www.w3.org/People/Gerald/
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)    http://www.w3.org/
tel:+1-613-261-6630             mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

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