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Eivind Tagseth | 1 Apr 2004 12:55
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Re: New followup text

* Charles Lindsey <chl <at> clerew.man.ac.uk> [2004-03-29 14:51:00 +0000]:

> In <200403272350.i2RNoVl07151 <at> panix5.panix.com> Seth Breidbart <sethb <at> panix.com> writes:
> >I didn't, and I don't like the idea: too many (broken but existing)
> >user agents truncate long Subject headers.

> I have seen threads entirely fragmented as a consequence of that.

Why would the threads fragment?  I can see how this may cause your
news agent to indicate a change of subject, but there should be no
fragmentation if the references header was used.  

Are you using an agent that ignores the references header, or are the
threads you read made up of posts by broken news agents that doesn't 
add a references header?

Eivind
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Eivind Tagseth | 1 Apr 2004 13:07
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Re: New followup text

* John Stanley <stanley <at> peak.org> [2004-03-31 11:53:08 -0800]:
> Eivind Tagseth (eivindt <at> multinet.no):
> 
> >There seems to be several standpoints about this: 
> 
> >        1. Create the specification as it should ideally be (i.e. no back 
> >            reference in the subject), and hope that most people will 
> >            upgrade to a conforming newsreader as soon as possible. 
> 
> I don't think anyone is making this argument. I don't recall anyone 
> saying "prohibit it".

(Actually, someone did talk about prohibiting it for articles without a
reference header).  Sorry, I didn't express myself clearly enough.  What
I meant was that there should be no automatically addition of the
back-reference.  See more below.

> You've left out the simplest option: don't specify any structure in an
> unstructured header. "Prohibit it" or "require it" are not the entire
> spectrum.

It's not my intent to specify structure in the subject header.  I'd like
the protocol specification to specify that the subject header is 
unstructured.  I'd also like a note explicitly saying that any back-reference
(such as "Re: ") is not part of the protocol.

For USEAGE, there should be a more detailed description of back-references 
and how they should be used and not used.

Eivind
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Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz | 1 Apr 2004 15:58

Re: and back-reference variants

In <HvC4J4.4x0 <at> clerew.man.ac.uk>, on 03/29/2004
   at 11:13 AM, "Charles Lindsey" <chl <at> clerew.man.ac.uk> said:

>Which is precisely what my latest text does. Can I take it that you
>could live with that text?

Are you referring to one of these?

   2. The content of the Subject-header SHOULD by default be taken
      from that of the precursor's Subject-header, possibly preceded
      by the back-reference "Re: " (case sensitive), unless it already
      begins with such a "Re: ".

   2. The content of the Subject-header SHOULD by default be copied
      from that of the precursor's Subject-header, possibly preceded
      by the case sensitive string "Re: " (known as a "back-
      reference") unless it already begins with that string.

I can certainly live with those, with a preference for the second. I
would like to see some text in Usage urging that the authors of
reading agents take note of References.

--

-- 
     Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT
     Atid/2
We don't care. We don't have to care, we're Congress.
(S877: The Shut up and Eat Your spam act of 2003)
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John Stanley | 1 Apr 2004 20:46

Re: New followup text


Charles Lindsey (chl <at> clerew.man.ac.uk):

>Well it may be judging, and it may be guessing, but it is what you have 
>been advocating by your repeated assertion that "no reference" 
>automatically means "new thread". 

What an amazing twist of language you went through to pretend that I said
something I did not. 

Notice how Eivind said "omission of a back-reference", you converted that
to "no reference", and them implied that I thought this was the same as
"no References header".

No Charles, "omission of a back-reference" is not the same as "no 
References header". "Omission of a back-reference" can happen for any 
number of reasons, and has no defined meaning. "No References header"
is the defined method of indicating that an article is not a followup.

Just to make it clear to you, Charles, I have NEVER said that the lack of 
a back-reference indicates the start of a new thread. Not once. What I 
have said, and what you have deliberately misinterpreted here, is that the 
lack of a REFERENCES header indicates the start of a new thread, by
definition, in published standards that have been around for DECADES.

>The problem is that the usage is almost universal, so we cannot suddenly 
>declare it to be obsolete. 

And here we are again, trying to argue this straw man. Even were anyone
arguing that we make such a declaration, you are wrong. We certainly can
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John Stanley | 1 Apr 2004 20:52

Header Field Registrations


Charles Lindsey (chl <at> clerew.man.ac.uk):

>   Whilst relaying agents MUST accept, and pass on unaltered, any non- 
>   variant header whose header-name is syntactically correct, and 
>   reading agents MUST enable them to be displayed, at least optionally, 

How does a reading agent "enable" a header? Do you mean "be able to 
display them"?

>   However, software SHOULD NOT attempt to interpret headers not 
>   specifically intended to be meaningful in the Netnews environment. 

A very nice condemnation of the "Re: " hack, I will note.
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Forrest J. Cavalier III | 1 Apr 2004 21:29

Re: Header Field Registrations


John, is <Pine.LNX.4.53.0404011048180.30055 <at> a.shell.peak.org>
your idea of a April Fool's joke?  

I notice your message had no "Re:" in the Subject, and no References header.

But it quoted from Charles' <200403301804.i2UI4Xv18100 <at> clerew.man.ac.uk>

I have to laugh that this undermines arguments I see you have made.

BTW, how many "decades old" is your e-mail client?  Or did some gateway
strip that header? Or are you just being a jerk^H^H^H^H^H^H^H exasperating
on purpose.

Going back to lurking now...
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Henry Spencer | 1 Apr 2004 21:34

Re: Header Field Registrations

On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, John Stanley wrote:
> >   reading agents MUST enable them to be displayed, at least optionally, 
> 
> How does a reading agent "enable" a header? Do you mean "be able to 
> display them"?

Better phrasing might be "MUST at least provide the option of displaying 
them".

> >   However, software SHOULD NOT attempt to interpret headers not 
> >   specifically intended to be meaningful in the Netnews environment. 
> 
> A very nice condemnation of the "Re: " hack, I will note.

Only if you ignore that "in the Netnews environment" part.  If "Re: " is
defined to be meaningful in news, there's no conflict.

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       henry <at> spsystems.net
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Bruce Lilly | 2 Apr 2004 03:32
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Re: Injection-Date

Charles Lindsey wrote:
> In <40660B84.8060608 <at> erols.com> Bruce Lilly <blilly <at> erols.com> writes:
> 
> 
>>Charles Lindsey wrote:
>>
>>>In <4062F8AB.5010505 <at> erols.com> Bruce Lilly <blilly <at> erols.com> writes:
>>>
>>>
>>>>I don't recall agreement about "reinjection".  You seem to be the only
>>>>person insisting that it should happen.  That warrants further discussion.
> 
> 
> I am not insisting that it should happen. I am asserting that it DOES
> happen (for a variety of reasons - some justifiable and some not). We have
> to live with that, and my concern is to make sure that if/when it happens
> it is not used as an excuse to rewrite the Injection-Date.

You seem to be the only person claiming that there are "justifiable"
"reasons" for "reinjection".  Yet you have not specified what those
reasons are in sufficient detail.

>>None of those sections defines "reinjection".
> 
> 
> 5.6.4 speaks of "double-injection" which come to the same thing (I would
> probably change that to "reinjection" as part of the change). Likewise
> 8.2.1 contains the phrase "injected twice". 8.2.2 uses the term
> "reinject".
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John Stanley | 2 Apr 2004 04:00

Re: Header Field Registrations


Forrest J. Cavalier III (mibsoft <at> epix.net):

>John, is <Pine.LNX.4.53.0404011048180.30055 <at> a.shell.peak.org> 
>your idea of a April Fool's joke? 

No, that looks like a perfectly good message id to me. What do you think 
the problem with it is?

>I notice your message had no "Re:" in the Subject, and no References 
>header. 

You are very, ummm, noticing. Alert. Yes, that's the word. What is your
point?

>I have to laugh that this undermines arguments I see you have made. 

In what way? I think it supports the claim that "Re: " present or absent
tells you nothing at all. You caught the fact that the message was a
followup to something else, so I guess "Re: "  not being present didn't
break anything at all.

Being the alert fellow you are, you might notice that this is not news,
where the References header is mandatory, but an email client, where
References is only a SHOULD. Of course, this requires the message id of 
the parent to be available, which it is not. I cannot generate a header 
for which I have no information, or are you implying I should enter a 
bogus header just to fit your sensibilities of how mail should operate?

>BTW, how many "decades old" is your e-mail client?
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Bruce Lilly | 2 Apr 2004 04:19
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Re: New followup text

Charles Lindsey wrote:
> In <40661463.8000103 <at> erols.com> Bruce Lilly <blilly <at> erols.com> writes:
> 
> 
>>Charles Lindsey wrote:
>>
>>>I have changed "taken" to "copied", if that makes you any happier. I see
>>>no need for "verbatim", since that is the normal meaning of "copied" in
>>>the absence of any other qualification. No, there are no transformations.
>>>Why should you suppose that there would be?
> 
> 
>>"possibly preceded by [...] 'Re: '"  certainly is a transformation.
> 
> 
> Yes, but we were dicussing transformation in the "taking" (now "copying")
> phase.

And I answered your question "[w]hy should you suppose...".  Note
that I have not suggested that there should be any transformation, but
that the text should be clear about what takes place.

>>Changes to line folding, comments (in structured fields), charsets,
>>languages, encoding algorithms in encoded-words (where allowed) etc.
>>either should be explicitly allowed (as transformations) or
>>explicitly prohibited.
> 
> 
> Those are all issues to be considered by the agent when it come to post
> the article after the user has done any editing he fancies upon the
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Gmane