* Phillip Lord <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-11-13 14:04+0000] > > >>>>> "PH" == Pat Hayes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > >> Our Systems Team has fielded this request many times. > > PH> Its about time it bloody well listened, then. > > Yes. > > PH> By the way, the tone of the document [1] is extremely annoying. If the > PH> W3C were a company taking this attitude, it would have lost its customer > PH> base years ago. Of course, the W3C isn't a company: but y'all might give > PH> some thought to the fact the great bulk of the W3C's work is done by > PH> volunteers, who are the people getting screwed over by the Systems > PH> Team's almost palpable arrogance. > > > The document suggests that if W3C sticks with it's silly policy, then perhaps > mail client developers will fix their clients. > > I think that the opposite is also true; if W3C is incapable of producing an > mailing list which can be configured to their owners' wishes, rather than > W3C's own dogma, we should perhaps move the mailing list elsewhere. I would > rather see the effort invested in getting W3C to fix their broken policy than > use workarounds which give them no incentive.
The implication here is that W3C is imposing unusual policies in an
effort to steer MUA development. I have many arguments against subject
tagging, but first, some statistics to show just how common it
is. Eliding W3C lists from my survey (as that would be a vapid proof),
I examined the 22 lists to which I am subscribed. I found:
5 lists that use subject tagging:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
3 lists that never use "Subject: [...]" for anything:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
14 lists that use "Subject: [...]" for something else:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] apache-general-xml
[EMAIL PROTECTED] csail-discuss
[EMAIL PROTECTED] gargonza
[EMAIL PROTECTED] ietf-xml-mime
[EMAIL PROTECTED] jde
[EMAIL PROTECTED] lists.mysql.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mozilla-netlib
[EMAIL PROTECTED] mozilla-rdf
[EMAIL PROTECTED] new-httpd
[EMAIL PROTECTED] perl-xml
[EMAIL PROTECTED] samba-announce
[EMAIL PROTECTED] samba-docs
[EMAIL PROTECTED] subversion
The ones where [...] has other meanings are the most troubling as they
imply conflicts if one were to emply subject tagging. [announce] (or
some variant), [POLL], [vote], [PATCH], and [CLOSED] where the most
common uses for tagging (discounting boring ones added by the system
like {Re:...] and [Fwd:...]. Another conflict that my survey did not
detect was cross-posting.
I appreciate that there is the periodic need for a cost/benifit
analyis, but would be more sympathetic were the appeals for just that.
> Incidentally, I don't filter on subject line.
>
> Phil
--
-eric
office: +1.617.258.5741 NE43-344, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02144 USA
mobile: +1.617.599.3509
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