RE: the evils of quoting, was: Use of XML as a basis for e-mail

> > I think it would be good to address quoting and 
> over-quoting in a new 
> > protocol. If we can address over-quoting by embedding a 
> pointer to the 
> > original message rather than the original message, that 
> should save a 
> > good deal of bandwith and it makes it very simple to 
> configure a user 
> > agent to disregard this and not display it. For regular 
> quoting this 
> > gets a bit more complicated, but it's worth the effort as 
> this way we 
> > get to cryptographically protect the quoted text.
> 
> Indeed. I was thinking about this before. If you were to 
> allow for being able to successfully pull back the original 
> message and check the signature on it, you would be able to 
> establish that when quoting you, I was in fact quoting you... 

Two ways of solving this using XML:
<email id="55" answers="42">How about two o'clock?</email>
<email id="42">Any suggestions?</email>
<email id="13" answers="55">Sounds good</email>

<email id="13">
	<email id="55">
		<email id="42">
			Any suggestions?
		</email>
    		How about two o'clock?
	</email>
	Sounds good
</email>

Both methods are sufficient to identify who is answering what in which
email. I would recommend the second solution, as the structure of the
discussion is evident from the structure of the email, instead of having
to be inferred after reading all <email>s. Also, it allows for the
splitting of emails without ambiguity of which part of an email is an
answer to which part in another. Example:

<email messageId="13">
	<email messageId="55">
		<email messageId="42">
			Any suggestions?
		</email>
    		How about two o'clock?
	</email>
	Sounds good
</email>
<email messageId="13">
	<email messageId="55">
		What will we be eating?
	</email>
	Dunno. How about Spaghetti Bolognese?
</email>

Yours sincerely,
-- 
Victor Engmark
Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum viditar - What is said in latin,
sounds profound