On Mon, 14 Feb 1994, Jon 'Iain' Boone wrote:
After referencing my copy of RFC 822, it doesn't seem (after a quick glance) to allow for user+misc@foo.bar.edu
RFC 822 says nothing about the interpretation of the "local-part" of an address. (Actually, it says "The local-part [...] is understood to be whatever the receiving mail protocol server allows.") RFC 822 also says that the "+" character is permitted to appear within an unquoted "atom" as part of an address. In other words, RFC 822 allows addresses of the form user+misc@domain (with some restrictions on the form of the "user+misc" string), but says nothing about how they should be interpreted. It is currently fashionable to treat mail to "user+misc@domain" similarly to mail to "user@domain", with the "misc" string being somehow made available for extra interpretation by the delivery software; but there is no Internet standard for this. --apb (Alan Barrett)