message references

[Jon L White <jonl@lucid.com>]

re:     Date: Tue, 20 Sep 88 10:44:45 PDT
	From: Jon L White <jonl@lucid.com>

	Incidentally, I know we thrashed this issue out on Common-Lisp@SU-AI 
	some months ago; and I remember initiating the discussion with a query
	msg to find out how other people felt about the issue.  However your 
	"References" field shows only the very cryptic:
		    <8807200836.AA02976@bhopal.lucid.com>,
		    <19880719152249.9.MOON@EUPHRATES.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>,
		    <19880719213809.1.GREENWALD@SWALLOW.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>,
		    <870402170955.6.MOON@EUPHRATES.SCRC.Symbolics.COM>
	I've noticed that this kind of encryption always occurs whe Symbolics
	folks try to reference prior mail; it must be some kind of "feature"
	in the Symbolics mailer?

    Those message-IDs follow the Internet standard for mail and were
    generated by the original sender, not by my reply.  There is no
    encryption going on.  There is nothing Symbolics-specific going on.  I
    have no control over these IDs, except possibly for the ones on the
    messages that I sent originally.

    . . . 

    You use Unix, don't you?  I'm surprised that it doesn't implement the
    Internet standard for mail.

No, I don't use Unix mailer.   The emacs/RMAIL I use prepares a header 
summary that includes the human readable information, but not any of the 
"encryption" stuff.  It's just that as a social convention, most other 
folks include human readable pointers when making reference to previous 
mail dialogue.  Is the exclusive use of the message-ID just a Symbolics 
social convention?

Also, I (and many others) don't include the message-ID's when referring to
past discussions, except insofar as mail Reply conventions install it.  Does
this cause a difficulty for you folks at Symbolics?


-- JonL --