From: Brad Templeton (brad@templetons.com)
Date: Mon Feb 28 2000 - 14:48:31 CST
On Mon, Feb 28, 2000 at 09:22:57PM +0100, Ralph Babel wrote:
> Henry Spencer wrote:
>
> > it *is* an interoperability problem. Not because
> > it inherently has to be, but because the ["From:"]
> > header has been mandatory from the beginning,
> > and so quite a bit of software expects it.
Fine, so now is the time to fix that design bug.
Well, you are correct to the extent that a USENET without a From header
is technically possible. As is one without a Subject header. One
could even say the Newsgroups header would be optional, placing such
articles in a virtual newsgroup similar to junk. You don't even
strictly need the path header, it just makes feeding more efficient.
You don't even need a message-id, since an MD5 would technically function
just as well as long as the varying path line is gone, so long as you had
a rule of invariance. The date header's only technical function is to
allow you to not have to keep message-ids forever, and to sort articles
based on date.
So let's have a USENET spec where the only required header is a
timestamp!
But while all this is possible, it's far from a good idea.
Forums where most everybody is anonymous have their role in certain
areas (discussing tabu subjects, health problems etc.) but outside of
that they very quickly become tiring. That's been demonstrated many
times. Anonymity is of use in other groups, but its use should be
limited and rare or the group devolves. And there are better ways to
reach that state than having no From header or doing nothing to
verify it.