From: Henry Spencer (henry@spsystems.net)
Date: Thu Oct 21 1999 - 22:14:48 CDT
On Thu, 21 Oct 1999, G. James Berigan wrote:
> There are still clients (and users) that use this header. I'd like to know
> what header replaces the purpose to which they put it.
It has never filled that purpose very well, and is getting less useful all
the time with the growth of MIME encodings. To the extent that a raw
article size is useful, the byte count is better than a line count, and
most servers can supply that without needing a header for it. (In fact,
it's a standard part of the overview database.)
> How about reclassifying it officially as a local (comment) header, not for
> propagation, like Xref, allowing those sites that wish to continue to use
> it use it and save others from dealing with the waste from its propagation?
This is actually equivalent to killing it, since it's currently generated
only by the originating site. If a receiving site is counting lines, it
can just put that count in the overview database -- again, there is a
standard field for it -- without cluttering up the headers with it.
> (Sorry about the personal copy, Henry. Just getting used to addressing to
> the list again. I can forward your reply back to you if you want.)
No sweat, I wondered about that, so I saved a copy...
Henry Spencer
henry@spsystems.net
(henry@zoo.toronto.edu)