From: J.B. Moreno (planb@newsreaders.com)
Date: Thu Dec 28 2000 - 18:44:08 CST
On 12/28/00 5:59 PM, Russ Allbery at <rra@stanford.edu> wrote:
> J B Moreno <planb@newsreaders.com> writes:
>
>> I disagree -- I think of the message as consisting of 3 parts: header,
>> body, and an optional footer aka the sig. This isn't how it is
>> transmitted or received over NNTP of course, but this is how I, as a
>> reader, deal with the articles and I think it's a useful way of doing
>> so. If you look at it this way, then it is obvious that the sig
>> shouldn't be quoted.
>
> I will repeat: I don't want my news reader to distinguish between the sig
> and the body when quoting. So it obviously *isn't* obvious, wouldn't you
> agree?
Yes, either that or they aren't thinking of it as consisting of 3 parts.
(BTW I believe Gnus does or at least can exclude the sig when quoting for a
followup).
-snip-
> Superfluous is a value judgement. It's not the purpose of a protocol
> standard to make value judgements, in my opinion. It's the purpose of a
> protocol standard to define the meanings and purposes of things and to
> establish their syntax so that multiple implementations can interact
> without misunderstanding each other. Statements about whether news
> readers should quote signatures do not fall into either of those
> categories.
Well, there's the heart of our disagreement (and thanks for helping
crystallize my thoughts). The sigdash IS a protocol statement: the end of
the portion of the body which should be automatically quoted in the
followup. It obviously has other uses, but that's it's main purpose. And
we should put it that way.
It's not something that is automatically added, or the is within 4 lines of
the bottom, it is a line consisting solely of "-- " and signals the end of
the portion that user wants to discuss.
If the someone does want to discuss it, then they have to somehow make their
software aware of that fact, just as they do with headers or when quoting
from different articles.
-- John Moreno