"Adium-devl" subject mangling

[John Bailey]

Colin Barrett wrote:
> This is your opinion. A number of people have said please turn them back
> on. This was already proposed on the mailing list and the issue was not
> resolved -- a number of people asked, politely, that they be left on.
> 
> What changed in the time between the original discussion on the list and
> you changing it? I say: nothing.
> 
> Please revert this change, Zac.

I have kept my tongue quite firmly bitten on this topic on-list thus far, as I
really don't want to start an argument over this.  Well, that, and I'm just a
subscriber here; my opinions don't carry any weight.  That said, I'm tired of
biting my tongue.

I've quite enjoyed the lack of subject mangling.  The mangling is just a waste
of space in the subject line, hiding parts of longer subjects that wouldn't
otherwise be hidden in a listview of messages.  It's also a relic from years
ago, as Zac pointed out.  The List-* headers have existed in RFC form for nearly
11 years now (RFC 2369, for those who are curious).

As a reference for just how outdated and unneeded subject mangling is, out of 55
mailing lists I'm currently subscribed to, *two* have subject mangling in place,
and only one of those is by administrator choice.

I find it disappointing that members of a team who so actively embrace new
things and abandon the old want to hang onto a relic that's over 10 years old
instead of using tools provided by an ever-growing number of mail clients.  Even
gmail and Mail.app support meaningfully handling mail without subject mangling.

Just my $0.02.

John

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