From: Erland Sommarskog (sommar@algonet.se)
Date: Mon Nov 03 1997 - 16:28:57 CST
Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk) writes:
>No, you can't do that, because a line in the newsgroups file is already
>expected to fit within 79 characters.
Stupid question: is the 79-char limit defined in an RFC somewhere
or is just convention? I have to say that it seems too narrow anyway.
And with newsgroups file not being used by many readers, I'm skeptic
to have size limits because of it.
Kai Henningsen wrote:
>Anything else should only be cases of obvious potential for
>harm, which essentially reduces to some specific ASCII characters like
>":%/&*?" (exact set TBD, but think "URL syntax" and "special shell
>characters". No non-ASCII characters should be on that list, and certainly
>not ASCII upper case. Leave that to hierarchy-specific rules.
I would actually suggest at least one non-ASCII character, to wit:
no-break space, code 160.
>No, the last thing we want is ugly punctuation in the middle of newsgroup
>names. In fact, I suggested removing "_" from the set, but nobody
>responded. There currently exist just a few alt groups and one bionet
>group with "_" in them. I reckon they could be fixed.
I don't think characters should be outlawed because they look ugly.
Possibly you could include a SHOULD NOT for them; however as long
as the characters do not cause technical obstacles, or may cause
confusion by similarity (as the no-break space), I see no reason
to outlaw any characters. Leave that decision to the policy-makers
of each hierarchy.
-- Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, sommar@algonet.se