From: Paul Overell (paulo@turnpike.com)
Date: Tue Nov 11 1997 - 04:04:28 CST
In article <Pine.LNX.3.95.971111153957.13449I-100000@darkmere.gen.nz>,
Simon Lyall <simon@darkmere.gen.nz> writes
>
>x.x Definitions.
>
> An "article" is the unit of news, analogous to a MAIL
> "message".
>
> An "author" is a human being (or software equivalent) that
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is an ugly phrase, how about "the person or software".
> composes the body of the article and decides where and how it
> will be posted.
>
> An "authoring agent" is software that assists the author is
> preparing the article.
>
> A "poster" is a human being (or software equivalent) that takes
> the finished article and prepares it for submission to the news
> stream.
>
There is a problem with your definition of "poster" and its use in the
header "Followup-to: poster". In this header the word "poster" means
that same as your definition of "author", not the same as your
definition of "poster".
> A "posting agent" is software that assists posters to prepare
> articles, including determining whether the final article is
> compliant, passing it on to an injecting agent for for final
> checking and injection into the news stream if so, and informing
> the poster with an explanation if not or if the injection agent
> rejects the article.
>
> An "injecting agent" takes the finished article from the posting
> agent performs some final checks and passes it on to a relaying
> agent for general distribution.
>
> A "relaying agent" is software which receives allegedly
> compliant articles from injecting agents and/or other
> relaying agents, and possibly passes copies on to other
> relaying agents and serving agents.
>
> A "serving agent" takes an article from a relaying agent and
> files it in a "news database" . It also provides an interface
> for reading agents to access the news database.
>
> A "reader" is a human being (or software equivalent) reading
> news articles.
>
> A "reading agent" is software which presents articles to a
> reader.
>
> A "newsgroup" is a single news forum, a logical bulletin
> board, having a name and nominally intended for articles on
> a specific topic. An article is "posted to" a single
> newsgroup or several newsgroups. When an article is posted to
> more than one newsgroup, it is said to be "crossposted";
> note that this differs from posting the same text as part of
> each of several articles, one per newsgroup. A "hierarchy"
> is the set of all newsgroups whose names share a first
> component.
>
> A newsgroup may be "moderated", in which case submissions
> are not posted directly, but mailed to a "moderator" for
> consideration and possible posting. Moderators are typically
> human but may be implemented partially or entirely in software.
>
> A "followup" is an article containing a response to the
> contents of an earlier article (the followup's "precursor").
>
> A "followup agent" is a combination of reading agent and
> posting agent that aids in the preparation and posting of a
> followup.
>
> A "reply agent" is a combination of reading agent and mailer
> that aids in the preparation and posting of an email response to
> an article.
>
> A "message ID" is a unique identifier for an article, usually
> supplied by the posting agent which posted it. It distinguishes
> the article from every other article ever posted anywhere.
> Articles with the same message ID are treated as identical
> copies of the same article even if they are not in fact
> identical.
>
> A "gateway" is software which receives news articles and
> converts them to messages of some other kind (e.g. mail to a
> mailing list), or vice-versa; in essence it is a translating
> relaying agent that straddles boundaries between different
> methods of message exchange. The most common type of gateway
> connects newsgroup(s) to mailing list(s), either
> unidirectionally or bidirectionally, but there are also
> gateways between news networks using this Draft's news format
> and those using other formats.
>
> A "control message" is an article which is marked as
> containing control information; a relaying or serving agent
> receiving such an article will (subject to permissions etc.)
> take actions beyond just filing and passing on the article.
>
> An article's "reply address" is the address to which mailed
> replies should be sent. This is the address specified in
> the article's From header (see section 5.2), unless it also
> has a Reply-To header (see section 6.3).
>
>
-- Paul Overell T U R N P I K E Ltd