Subject: draft-hoffman-mailto-url-02

From: MegaZone <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Nov 1997 21:12:03 -0800 (PST)

I see a decision on draft-hoffman-mailto-url-02 is pending.

I'd like to encourage the *rejection* of this proposal as it breaks
many existing UAs.  There has been much discussion of this on HTML
mailing lists.  There have been other proposals floated to allow for
new attributes or elements to achieve the same goals while maintaining
backwards compatibility.

As an example even with a UA like NS 4.x which recognizes extensions
you have to use a mail client that also understands.  If you use a verion
of Eudora that doesn't it breaks.  Many mail programs do not understand,
and forcing people to use the browser email client isn't a fair option.

As a member of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative HTML & CSS working
group I see this is potentially damaging to accessibility.

-MZ
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From: Marc Horowitz <[email-masked]>
Date: 06 Nov 1997 14:28:09 -0500

>> and forcing people to use the browser email client isn't a fair option.

This draft is in last call for promotion to Proposed Standard.  To
quote RFC2026:

   A Proposed Standard specification is generally stable, has resolved
   known design choices, is believed to be well-understood, has received
   significant community review, and appears to enjoy enough community
   interest to be considered valuable.  However, further experience
   might result in a change or even retraction of the specification
   before it advances.

This draft has done all of these.  And even considering that, if
people decide it was a bad idea, a Proposed Standard can be rescinded.
Wide implementation is not a requirement at this point.  When MIME
became Proposed Standard, there were plenty of mail clients which
didn't support it.  I view this as a similar situation.

That said, promoting this draft will encourage vendors whose products
don't support it to fix this.  As things are now, it will work
sometimes for some people.  If you define new attributes or elements,
the new functionality is guaranteed not to work until the vendors
catch up.

		Marc