RS> Nope, not the message body, the text the user enters. THATs what the
 RS> SOT and EOT do thats different, a completely rigorous and unambiguous
 RS> start and finish of the user text that any message processing software
 RS> can be quite sure contains nothing that it needs to analyse for header
 RS> detail wise.

 RS> The principle is fine, the problem is introducing that now when most
 RS> messages dont use them.

It is not a great problem, because what it does allow is for the
traditional method to work better.  Traditionally you have to
search from the end backwards, skipping SEENBY, then Origin line,
and then you will probably find a tearline.  Now, if a tearline
is missing, you will instead find an EOT, whereby you are meant
to stop looking.  Traditionally, you would have continued looking
for a "---" in the user text, or at least if you had just run over
a blank line you would have.  It is really a pigs swill as to 
what exactly you are meant to do here.  SOT/EOT serves a lot of
its purpose just by being there.  E.g. if SOT/EOT is used, then
you will never find "AREA" as the first line in a netmail message.
Anyone who doesn't use SOT/EOT has to rely on the user being a
really nice person and not sticking "AREA" as the first line of
their netmail messages.  That is satisfactory IMO.

 RS> Nope, its much easier to have something which is guaranteed to be
 RS> the end of the user text. Anything else is farting around detecting
 RS> when the user text stops and when trailing header detail starts.
 RS> Particularly for stuff like forwarded messages which may well
 RS> have stuff like real origin lines in the user text.

Yeah, this is the big problem.  Mail readers should be stripping
the Origin and tear lines completely, the same way they strip
the INTL line.  Failure to do so means that people keep shipping
these control lines around with their messages.

 RS> The only problem is that SOT and EOT are not mandated so you have a
 RS> real problem when most mail doesnt have them. BUT, like I say, thats
 RS> easy enough, just process mail today without relying on them. If they
 RS> ever do become universal you can do it differently.

You can simply integrate it as a small part of your processing.

 RS> Ditto for taglines. Many people think they are a waste of bandwidth.
 RS> Fact remains, heaps use them and THATs what matters.

Taglines are not part of the FTS/FSC standards and are user-text
as far as fidonet is concerned.  It's the user's responsibility
to not generate taglines if they do not wish them to come out the
other end.  Ditto for multi-line signatures.  

 RS> And the reason its not very useful for that is because you have what is
 RS> clearly not normal user text above it. Thats the way the system has grown
 RS> over time and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that now.

It can change Rod.  The INTL was added on as an afterthought,
and not compulsory, as an example.  I would expect SOT/EOT to
remain the same - optional, easy to generate, and can be used
as a small part of the logic used to find origin lines and
tear lines etc.  BFN.  Paul.
@EOT:

--- Mksmsg