[whatwg] Referer header sent with <a ping>?

[Julian Reschke]

Darin Fisher wrote:
> It's true that the Ping-From/To headers carry the important information, 
> but I suspect that sending a Referer header is nice for servers that 
> happen to receive unsolicited pings.  Server logs will likely store the 
> value of the Referer header, and this way, site admins can see why they 
> are receiving these funny POST messages.
> 
> Julian, "#PING" seems like a reasonable choice since it will not collide 
> with any pre-existing Referer header values.  I think that's what Ian 
> had in mind by writing "non-conforming".
> 
> -Darin

I think it's a strange way to design a network protocol. When ping 
requests in access logs are a problem, there are many ways not to have 
it in the first place (not using HTTP, for instance) or by using a 
different HTTP verb. Forcing something into a header it's not designed 
for is even worse, in particular if the only reason given is to make it 
easier to parse logs.

BR, Julian