OT - the OT tag and the Re bug.

On Sun, 27 May 2007 23:19:46 GMT, "Neil Gould" wrote in
:

Recently, Jim Logajan posted:

The following newsreaders used for replies in the "OT: Electric cars"
thread "do the right thing":

Xnews, KNode, Trn, Forte

The following newsreader used for replies in that thread "do the wrong
thing":

MS Outlook Express

Interesting. How did you arrive at that?

I'll bet he read the headers for the replies in the thread.

You sent your post with:

X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409

If you look in the headers for this post, you will probably
be able to find out what newsreader I'm using.

Marty
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"Martin X. Moleski, SJ" wrote:
I'll bet he read the headers for the replies in the thread.

That is indeed what I did.

Recently, Jim Logajan posted:

"Martin X. Moleski, SJ" wrote:
I'll bet he read the headers for the replies in the thread.

That is indeed what I did.

I was asking how you arrived at the conclusion that Outlook Express was
one of the apps that "did the wrong thing". As you can tell from the
headers, I'm using OE. Notice that I also modified the subject to include
a couple more colons, which, as you can see, were posted correctly. So...
how was it that you concluded that OE "did the wrong thing"?

Neil

On Mon, 28 May 2007 11:09:00 GMT, "Neil Gould" wrote in
:

I was asking how you arrived at the conclusion that Outlook Express was
one of the apps that "did the wrong thing". As you can tell from the
headers, I'm using OE. Notice that I also modified the subject to include
a couple more colons, which, as you can see, were posted correctly. So...
how was it that you concluded that OE "did the wrong thing"?

The OE bug is generated by the first person using OE
to reply to a post that begins with "OT:" (or any other
combination of letters other than "".

Once you have "" in the subject line, OE ignores the
rest of the line.

The purpose of eliminating non-"Re" strings ending with a colon
at the beginning of a subject line is to get rid of foreign
language equivalents of "". One "Re" at the beginning of
the line is sufficient.

The well-behaved newsreaders evidently check the first
component so that "OT:" remains intact. OE evidently trims
the first component without checking and substitutes ""
for it.

This is an extremely difficult subject to search for, since
the words involved in the concept are so ordinary.

Here's an example of a discussion of the bug/featu

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.autos.toyota/browse_frm/thread/6bd5c4dbbd550a04/f6b23cfc83d72953?lnk=st&q=outlook+bug+usenet+subje ct&rnum=2#f6b23cfc83d72953

http://tinyurl.com/ypdlpd

FWIW, you might want to make a mental note that Jim Logajan
has been around Usenet for a long time. He has undoubtedly
observed the strange splitting of threads in other groups,
as have I, and wondered why it happened. So have those
who are trying to write standards for Usenet news servers
and newsreaders:

http://www.landfield.com/usefor/2004/Mar/index.html

My favorite subject line on that page is " Sv: Ant: Sv: Antwort: ",
although the post itself is not as funny as the subject.
It does show the problem that Outlook's rule is trying to
avoid--the meaningless multiplication of things that
mean "Re".

Marty
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On Mon, 28 May 2007 09:36:29 -0400, "Martin X. Moleski, SJ"
wrote:


The purpose of eliminating non-"Re" strings ending with a colon
at the beginning of a subject line is to get rid of foreign
language equivalents of "". One "Re" at the beginning of
the line is sufficient.


Speaking of OT, Marty, maybe you could drop into rec.arts.books.

Last week someone posted a serious question about when canon law
addressed the issue of clergy carrying deadly weapons. Given the
breadth of your background, it occured to me that you'd have a handle
on that. No one else has responded to the question.

Don

Recently, Martin X. Moleski, SJ posted:

On Mon, 28 May 2007 11:09:00 GMT, "Neil Gould"
wrote in
:

I was asking how you arrived at the conclusion that Outlook Express
was one of the apps that "did the wrong thing". As you can tell from
the headers, I'm using OE. Notice that I also modified the subject
to include a couple more colons, which, as you can see, were posted
correctly. So... how was it that you concluded that OE "did the
wrong thing"?

The OE bug is generated by the first person using OE
to reply to a post that begins with "OT:" (or any other
combination of letters other than "".

Once you have "" in the subject line, OE ignores the
rest of the line.

Ah. I see. Thanks for the clarification, Martin.

Neil

Notice that I also modified the subject to include
a couple more colons, which, as you can see, were posted correctly.

That's not the bug. The bug (and I don't know if OE has it) is that
when a subject line is automatically processed, the automatic processing
strips incorrectly.

I am using Netscape 7.2. It does not have this bug. However, I am
noticing it has a different bug. Everything to the =right= of the
second colon has been stripped. Interesting.

Actually, that might even be the intended operation, since what was to
the right was the "(was..." and maybe the program is stripping that away
to complete the transition to the intended new subject line.

Curiouser and curiouser. I really wish the documentation would indicate
just =what= is supposed to happen.

Jose
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Recently, Jose posted:

Notice that I also modified the subject to include
a couple more colons, which, as you can see, were posted correctly.

That's not the bug. The bug (and I don't know if OE has it) is that
when a subject line is automatically processed, the automatic
processing strips incorrectly.

I am using Netscape 7.2. It does not have this bug. However, I am
noticing it has a different bug. Everything to the =right= of the
second colon has been stripped. Interesting.

Actually, that might even be the intended operation, since what was to
the right was the "(was..." and maybe the program is stripping that
away to complete the transition to the intended new subject line.

Curiouser and curiouser. I really wish the documentation would
indicate just =what= is supposed to happen.

That *is* interesting.

I don't know that I'd call these "bugs", if they are working as originally
intended. Perhaps the reasons for executing these actions don't match the
expectations of the user, but that is a somewhat different matter.

Neil

On Mon, 28 May 2007 11:51:32 -0500, "Neil Gould" wrote in
:

Recently, Jose posted:

Notice that I also modified the subject to include
a couple more colons, which, as you can see, were posted correctly.

That's not the bug. The bug (and I don't know if OE has it) is that
when a subject line is automatically processed, the automatic
processing strips incorrectly.

I am using Netscape 7.2. It does not have this bug. However, I am
noticing it has a different bug. Everything to the =right= of the
second colon has been stripped. Interesting.

Actually, that might even be the intended operation, since what was to
the right was the "(was..." and maybe the program is stripping that
away to complete the transition to the intended new subject line.

Curiouser and curiouser. I really wish the documentation would
indicate just =what= is supposed to happen.

That *is* interesting.

I don't know that I'd call these "bugs", if they are working as originally
intended. Perhaps the reasons for executing these actions don't match the
expectations of the user, but that is a somewhat different matter.

The moral of the story is not to use colons as punctuation
in a subject line IF you care about what happens to it later
as it passes through the hands of various and sundry
newsreaders.

Google was also swallowing up square brackets last time I checked
(five or six months ago), so tags like [OT], [META], [FA], etc.,
don't show up in the archive the way they did on first reading
from my NSP.

I'm not saying anyone has to care ...

Marty
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