"Swingman" wrote:

In most cases this is actually the result of the OP using a reserved
"control character" to delineate the "OT", such as the colon in "OT:".

In an attempt to conform to RFC Internet protocols, many mail/news clients
strip out what are considered "encoded words" and/or other characters that
precede, without a space, these control characters that are used to
terminate/modify message header information.

(See RFC #822, and others, for more information on the structure of header
fields)

Some newsreaders follow protocol, some do not, (recent versions of OE do
this routinely, while most versions of Forte Agent do not),

I use Thunderbird and it doesn't mess with OT: in the subject line or in
the body of a message. Historically, Netscape/Thunderbird have followed
protocol more so than Microsoft, so when someone says MicroSoft does
something right, it grabs my attention.

Tim Douglass wrote:
Curiously enough, RFC 822 does not address the issue of the embedded
colon in the subject line at all. In fact it specifically defines the
subject as an unparsed text string.

When properly implemented
you can use "OT:" and follow-ups will come out as "OT:". If poorly
implemented you get " OT:". I haven't the time to try to search out
what is really the desired behavior, but clearly one that allows for
tagging posts as "OT:" is better behaved than one that forces you to
use "OT - " or some such, producing " OT - " in the follow-ups.
Granted, a properly threading newsreader will not be fooled, but I
don't think that OE threads properly anyway. Forte gives the option of
threading on subject.

Now this makes sense, in that Thunderbird has it right, and OE has it
wrong.

Your point about using something other than the colon following the OT
is well taken, but the reason why it misbehaves is, I believe,
somewhat different from your explanation.

Well, since the subject: came up, and my curiosity was aroused when MS
was accused of doing something right, I went and looked through RFC 822
and it seemed clear the subject is a text field and colons are fine.

Now, since you "think the point is well taken" colons, and the
Swingman thinks MS is following protocol by striping out OT with colons,
my curiosity is not quenched just yet. Should colons be a control
character in the text field or not and where can I find the truth?

My money is on Thunderbird vs OE with to following protocol but I'm
always looking for MS getting something right...

--
Jack
http://jbstein.com