> > First, "Re: your mail" sounds like a spam mail heading and doesn't > > convey any useful information. > > True enough, but, the fault is with the original sender for not > providing a meaningful subject, and if they don't want to receive > responses that look like spam they should...not do that.
It is their fault, but I think a general principle should be applied here: "Be conservative in what you send, be liberal in what you accept". MUA shouldn't punish people for their mistakes. > "Re: (no subject)" which seems more suitable to me. I like this option. The "no subject" or any other line in here will definitely have to be localized though. > It avoids perpetuating the blank subject and indicates to the > original sender that they failed to provide a meaningful subject. > [...] If the sender didn't provide a meaningful subject, you're not > going to fix that other than manually. >From the UX perspective I think it might be better not to enforce having a meaningful subject everywhere. In practice if the sender left the subject line empty, the email might be a one-time note from your spouse regarding some errands you have to run or a non-technical boss about a deadline. It's fairly common to encounter an empty subject in some environments. The bottom line is that different users will have different practices and levels of OCD regarding the subject line. The mailing client should recognize that there are situations when people skip subject, and among those there probably will be cases when "Re:" thread at first becomes "Re: [something meaningful]" later. > > It might be tempting to extract this part into a configuration > > variable, but I doubt anyone would really welcome the opportunity to > > invent some generic "Re: ..." subject. > > Why? This is Mutt. =8^) Good point. So we won't be saving them a headache, but _robbing_ them of an option! :^) Personally I often find it difficult to come up with a subject line even to my own emails, let alone the emails of others.
