From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Oct 03 2000 - 05:45:29 CDT
In <ylhf6vrv06.fsf@windlord.stanford.edu> Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:
>It doesn't matter what we say; we're not a mail standard. We don't get to
>say what things mean in mail, as much as I'd like to change the world.
The Newsgroups header is defined in a News standard. So we get to say what
it means.
Anyway, there is no problem. If the Newsgroup header appears in an email
alongside a Posted-And-Mailed header, then it is absolutely clear what it
means. Currently I say if you use PAM you MAY use Newsgroups as well. I am
minded to upgrade that to SHOULD.
If it appears without a Posted-And-Mailed header, then it is not so clear.
Our draft says it should mean that it was also posted to those groups.
Rn/trn might disagree, so recipients will have some uncertainty. But our
draft says PAM SHOULD be included when a followup agent does it. Perhaps
we should add a SHOULD for when a clean (not followup) article is posted
and mailed (currently, it is suggested with a MAY-like strength).
BTW, can anyone tell me whether agents that recognise MCT currently append
Posted-And-Mailed in the proper way, or whether there is any current usage
of this header at all?
>It's not, however, an ancient rn practice; I believe the most current
>version of trn still does this. But I could be wrong; I haven't used trn
>in a while.
Sure. I just hope the maintainers will take it out when our draft becomes
the standard. Current practice is chaotic, so somebody is bound to become
non-compliant whichever way we put it.
-- Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------ Email: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl Voice/Fax: +44 161 437 4506 Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5