Subject: Re: [Asrg] 6. Propsals -- Labeling recommendations for the FTC

From: Brett Watson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 02:31:41 +1100

Comment on section 3.2 The Keywords header.

As I understand it, there is no precedent for giving specific keywords 
specific meanings in this context. One could therefore object that this 
proposal is not properly backwards compatible with existing practice, because 
existing use of these keywords may not carry the specific meaning used here.

Not that I've seen the "keywords" field used in practice, or used it myself 
outside of obscure humour value in Usenet posts many years ago. But hey -- 
devil's advocate.

I see two possible ways around this. One is to define a specific new field; 
the other is to make the keywords a bit more specific. Obviously Eric was 
attempting to avoid defining new fields, and that's a fair tack, but defining 
a new field is an option. To make the keywords more specific, we could have 
"can-spam-advertising" instead of just "advertising" (using "can-spam-" as a 
namespace of sorts), to reduce the plausibility that it will conflict with 
any existing usage.

On the matter of internationalisation, I would say that these are meant 
primarily to be machine-readable tokens. The MUA can translate the tokens 
into an appropriate natural language description or icon, etc.

As an aside, I can see the mere presence of the "keywords" field becoming a 
major touchstone for spam if this proposal is adopted.

Regards,
TFBW

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From: "Eric S. Raymond" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 10:43:55 -0500

> outside of obscure humour value in Usenet posts many years ago. But hey -- 

A fair point to raise.  But I did consider it...and concluded that
Keywords is generally unused precisely *because* there are no global
conventions about ketyword meanings.
 
> I see two possible ways around this. One is to define a specific new
> field; the other is to make the keywords a bit more
> specific. Obviously Eric was attempting to avoid defining new
> fields, and that's a fair tack, but defining a new field is an
> option. To make the keywords more specific, we could have
> "can-spam-advertising" instead of just "advertising" (using
> "can-spam-" as a namespace of sorts), to reduce the plausibility
> that it will conflict with any existing usage.

I considered this, too -- in my first draft, it was "Content-keyword".
Since Keywords is both registered and unused, going with it seemed
liike the better approach.  But I'm not strongly attached to this; my
mind could be changed.

> into an appropriate natural language description or icon, etc.

That was my thinking, too; I should have mentioned it in the rationale.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

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From: Brett Watson <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 03:51:32 +1100

> conventions about ketyword meanings.

I'd be more inclined to think that they are unused because they're not worth 
the effort. Keywords don't need global meanings to be useful; merely 
institutional meanings. You can search RFCs by keyword, for example, and 
that's modestly useful given that there's a natural (domain-specific) lexicon 
from which to select kywords.

But unless you're explicitly planning on making your email searchable, why 
would you use keywords? Who knows: maybe some mailing lists do practice good 
keyword culture. I haven't seen any evidence of it, but I wouldn't presume to 
call the "keywords" field "unused" on that basis.

I don't have any fundamental objection to the use of the "keywords" field for 
this purpose, but I think that any special universally-meaningful keywords 
which are introduced should be given their own "namespace", purely out of 
respect for the original intent of the field. It also lends the technique an 
air of generality and extensibility, even if we have no desire to extend it 
further. Define the keyword in a way that makes it unlikely to clash with 
natural language at all, although it may contain "advertising" or "bulk" as a 
part (presumably a suffix).

Regards,
TFBW

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From: "Eric S. Raymond" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 12:15:01 -0500

Brett Watson <[email-masked]>:
> I don't have any fundamental objection to the use of the "keywords"
> field for this purpose, but I think that any special
> universally-meaningful keywords which are introduced should be given
> their own "namespace", purely out of respect for the original intent
> of the field.

This just pushes the problem back a level.  How do you know you won't
collide with someone else's namerspace grab? :-)
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>

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From: Yakov Shafranovich <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 15:23:38 -0500

> collide with someone else's namerspace grab? :-)

I think the message quoting Jacob Palme stated pretty clearly that for 
these purposes a new header is needed.

Yakov

-------
Yakov Shafranovich / PGP Key: 0x10D051E6 / www.shaftek.org
SolidMatrix Technologies, Inc. / www.solidmatrix.com
"And this too shall come to pass"
-------

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From: "Eric S. Raymond" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 15:52:12 -0500

> these purposes a new header is needed.

Fine. I've changed it to "Sender-Keywords" in draft and added a note that
relays etc. SHOULD NOT remove or rewrite this header.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>