[whatwg] Comments on the definition of a valid e-mail address

[Tab Atkins Jr.]

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 8:54 AM, Aryeh Gregor<Simetrical+w3c at gmail.com> wrote:
> The breakdown of the 202 is as follows.
>
> * Single trailing dot in domain part: 100 (prohibited by RFC but
> plausibly deliverable)

Do these still have a normal TLD identifier before the trailing dot?
Or are they just *really* weird?

I almost suspect that these are just simple typos that are cleaned up
by mailers, and could be flagged as invalid.

> * Single trailing dot in local part: 40 (prohibited by RFC but
> plausibly deliverable)

It seems that these are indeed valid in the wild, and so the algorithm
should be loosened to allow these.

> * Valid address in angle brackets (with other junk around it): 21
> (permitted by RFC, kind of, and plausibly deliverable)

I'm fine with flagging these.  The user can just remove the junk.

> * Multiple consecutive dots: 20 (prohibited by RFC but plausibly deliverable)

We need to see if these are actually deliverable.

> * No @: 9 (unlikely to be deliverable)

Flag them.

> * Comment: 3 (permitted by RFC and plausibly deliverable)

What do you mean by this?  Is it just fluff that doesn't affect the
actual routing of the mail?  If so, I'm fine with keeping them
flagged, even if it is allowed by RFC.

> * Miscellaneous: 9 (one containing [NO]@[SPAM], two with trailing >,
> one in "quotes", one with single leading dot in local part, two with
> single leading comma in local part, one with leading ": ", one with
> leading "\")

It would be nice to see how many of the latter 6 are deliverable.

~TJ