Different "Re:" Styles

Different "Re:" Styles

[Jens Lautenbacher]

I have often discussion with someone who has a mailer that marks
Replies with "Aw:" instead of "Re:". The net result is that gnus is no
longer able to thread the posting-answer-backanswer-.... chain and
message produces "Re: Aw: blabla" for my answers on his first answer. 

Is there any possibility to tune gnus in a way that it is able to
process "Aw:" at the beginning og a subject line the same way ot does
for "Re:" ?????

Yours,
	Jens

Re: Different "Re:" Styles

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Jens Lautenbacher <jens@lemming0.lem.uni-karlsruhe.de> writes:

> I have often discussion with someone who has a mailer that marks
> Replies with "Aw:" instead of "Re:". The net result is that gnus is no
> longer able to thread the posting-answer-backanswer-.... chain and
> message produces "Re: Aw: blabla" for my answers on his first answer. 
> 
> Is there any possibility to tune gnus in a way that it is able to
> process "Aw:" at the beginning og a subject line the same way ot does
> for "Re:" ?????

No, the Re: is hardcoded all over the place.  "Aw:" is broken.  Make
somebody fix that brainded mailer.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen

Re: Different "Re:" Styles

[Jost Krieger]

>>>>> "Lars" == Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:

 Lars> Jens Lautenbacher <jens@lemming0.lem.uni-karlsruhe.de> writes:
 >> I have often discussion with someone who has a mailer that marks
 >> Replies with "Aw:" instead of "Re:". The net result is that gnus
 >> is no longer able to thread the
 >> posting-answer-backanswer-.... chain and message produces "Re: Aw:
 >> blabla" for my answers on his first answer.
 >> 
 >> Is there any possibility to tune gnus in a way that it is able to
 >> process "Aw:" at the beginning og a subject line the same way ot
 >> does for "Re:" ?????

 Lars> No, the Re: is hardcoded all over the place.  "Aw:" is broken.
 Lars> Make somebody fix that brainded mailer.

Yes, yes, yes and no. It is hardcoded, it is braindead, it should be fixed,
but "somebody" is Microsoft. "Aw:" is in reality "AW:", stands probably for "Antwort", 
German for "Reply", and is contained in (the German version of) Microsoft Exchange.
Fat chance of getting that fixed.

By the way, they also put "WL:", where you would expect "Fwd:" ...

Jost
-- 
Jost Krieger, Postmaster, Rechenzentrum der Ruhr-Universitaet Bochum
Jost.Krieger@rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de

Re: Different "Re:" Styles

[Per Abrahamsen]

The Seal of Good Netkeeping seems to allow rewrites that compensate
for broken software like Microsoft Exchange:

The Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval says:

> Exception: The software MAY try to compensate for other people's
> broken software by stripping off such non-standard prefixes as
> "Re(2): ", "Re:" (no space), "RE: ", "re: ", or "Re: Re: " and
> replacing them with "Re: ".

Re: Different "Re:" Styles

[Jost Krieger]

For the case of Mail, I cannot find *any* codification of "Re: ", however.

Jost

Re: Different "Re:" Styles

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Jost Krieger <Jost.Krieger@rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> writes:

> For the case of Mail, I cannot find *any* codification of "Re: ",
> however.

No, RFC822 does not specify that the Subject in replies should have
"Re: " prepended.  RFC822 was written in a long-gone age, where things
that were self-evident simply was not discussed.  RFC822 wasn't
written to be read by morons -- ``Hey, RFC822 doesn't explicitly
prohibit us from adding the string "wE aRe ElItE!!!!!1!!" to the end
of all lines passing through our server, so let's do that!!!!1!''  --
so MicroSoft Exchange can add whatever it wants to any parts of all
mail messages it generates.  Don't expect me to bother with dealing
with the junk, though.

-- 
  "Yes.  The journey through the human heart 
     would have to wait until some other time."

Re: Different "Re:" Styles

[Jason L Tibbitts III]

>>>>> "PA" == Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:

PA> The Seal of Good Netkeeping seems to allow rewrites that compensate for
PA> broken software like Microsoft Exchange:

Didn't we go through this once already?  I recall a big argument with no
resolution.

 - J<

Re: Different "Re:" Styles

[Ken Raeburn]

> Yes, yes, yes and no. It is hardcoded, it is braindead, it should be fixed,
> but "somebody" is Microsoft. "Aw:" is in reality "AW:", stands probably for "Antwort", 
> German for "Reply", and is contained in (the German version of) Microsoft Exchange.
> Fat chance of getting that fixed.

Well, maybe *they* won't fix it, but it's probably a simple matter of
applying emacs to the binary... :-) It's most likely in there as a
simple constant string.  (And if you do find the right offset, there's
probably some simple set of commands you can give to some DOS/Windoze
editor or debugger to make the same fix, simple enough that you can
publicize it for any user who doesn't even know what "binary" means.)
"Fixing" wl->fwd may be more troublesome, since the strings are of
different length.

(Of course, I don't have the program, I try to avoid Windows when
possible, and I don't know for sure how they code the "Re:"/"Aw:"
addition.  I could be wrong.  It could be very hard to change.)

It should at least be reported as a bug by as many people as possible,
and make sure you let them know why it's wrong.  If it isn't reported,
then there's an even smaller chance they'll fix it.