Message Tracking -> [was Re: Re-merging headers (was: Re: Use of XML as a basis for e-mail)]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Martin Duerst" <[email protected]>
To: "Hector Santos" <[email protected]>


> At 02:21 04/02/03 -0500, Hector Santos wrote:
>
> >This in-directly brings up an issue of the "message-id",  its purpose.
>
> This brings me to an idea I had some time ago:
>
> I would like to be able to merge the headers of a message that I got
> over two or more ways back together. As an example, I get a message
> personally from one of you but also over the mailing list. I would
> like my procmail not just to eliminate one of them (the one that
> arrives later, or whatever that would be), but to combine the headers
> of these two mails back together so that I have all info about how
> the mail reached me in one place.

So in other words:

    o mail-ng should have easy support for "message tracking"
    o mail-ng should have easy support for "message dupe processing."
    o mail-ng should have easy support for "message threading."

I separating them because "historistically" it was a debated on which one is
more important.  I was on the camp that felt it should be all of the above
(you know,  "kill 3 birds with one stone").  Right now, it is mostly used
(if possible) for threading email (Reply-id: not required for email) and
required for threading/dupe processing on news mail.  The devil is in the
details, of course.

> Of course this is only possible with a structured header format.

No comment <g>

> More along these lines would be headers that allow to add comments
> to a message, or to overwrite things such as the subject without
> destroying the original subject, and so on.

In addition to:

    o mail-ng should have easy support for "Non-destructive Original Subject
Reply System."

I love that word "easy."   Sort of like a hint for designers. :-)

Please accept my apology for changing the subject line. I felt this is where
the idea of "re-merging" begins - message tracking.

-- 
Hector Santos, Santronics Software, Inc.
http://www.santronics.com