On Sat, Jan 30, 2021 at 11:22:43AM -0500, Richard Damon wrote:
> On 1/30/21 8:23 AM, Sam Kuper wrote:
>> [Unless] signatures and footers use distinct separators, it would not
>> be practical for MUA developers to implement separate options for
>> signature- and footer-handling. So, using distinct separators for
>> footers compared to signatures still seems to me the right approach.
>>
> The issue is that the 'footer' separator that was used isn't really a
> truely distinctive line, just a line with some number of underscore
> that could easily just happen in a natural body of text.
To be clear, I was not suggesting that the traditional Mailman footer
separator was *perfect*. I'm not wedded to that particular footer
separator.
All I am advocating is that:
1. Footer separators and signature separators should be
machine-distinguishable from each other.
2. Footer separators should be distinguishable from likely body
text, and should not be excessively long.
3. Signature separators should be distinguishable from likely body
text, and should not be excessively long.
> The signature seperator was specifically chosen to be very unlikely to
> naturally occur, including that single space at the end of the line.
Yes, I realise that.
Put differently: you and I both agree on point 3 above :)
> The basic idea where this came from was that in the days with
> significant bandwidth limits, it was very important to get people in
> the habit of trimming messages, and the signature delimiter became a
> standard to allow 'good' tools to automatically eliminate the extra
> stuff that was added at the end of messages.
I think netiquette was as much (if not more of) a motivation than
bandwidth limits. But I may be wrong on this point. Anyway, it's
tangential.
> I sort of doubt that there is enough will to create and support some
> other 'standard' code to mark a second type of 'message ending' text,
There's no harm in coming up with a sensible one and putting it in an
RFC draft.
*Some* MUA developers probably care enough to implement it. Maybe
Thunderbird (at least as an extension), Claws, Mutt, NeoMutt, Gnus,
mu4e, etc.
So, I would ask you not to be defeatist about this.
> and it almost certainly would NOT be the line of underscores that
> mailman used.
As I say, that's OK, as long as the three criteria above are met in a
sensible way.
Given that Mailman's traditional separator is longstanding, and an
unknown number of people have developed tooling around it, restoring it
would probably be the best way to minimise disruption.
But if someone comes up with an even better separator (a line of
underscores followed by a space, maybe?), then that's great.
All best,
Sam
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