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by professor_v 1918 days ago
I just realized the 'Referer' header is actually a misspelling in the http protocol.
2 comments

Yup, here's an article you may enjoy https://httptoolkit.tech/blog/http-wtf/ and related HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26343577
And I made up the HTTP status code "397 Tolerating" so that if you spell it "Referrer", browsers can correct you while still giving you the response you wanted :-p (see section 3 example):

https://pastebin.com/TPj9RwuZ

Late correction: sorry, that should be "if your browser spells it 'Referrer', webservers can correct you...".
I am genuinely unsure whether your RFC was intended to be serious or not.
So am I! I did it as an April Fool’s joke (see the date and the author, Ben Dover). But I also think it would be legitimately useful and have long wished for a standard protocol for expressing that you’re “tolerating” a standards violation while still pointing it out.