From: Erland Sommarskog (sommar@algonet.se)
Date: Sat Apr 14 2001 - 08:35:53 CDT
John Stanley <stanley@peak.org> writes:
> There is always a first time. "This is the first time" is not an
> argument for the status quo. If there is no case sensitivity, then there
> is no preferred case convention that SHOULD be followed. And no, this is
> not even the first time someone has raised this as a problem, it has
> appeared in a recent discussion in news.groups about the failure of Google
> to honor X-No-Archive headers. Someone chimed in claiming that the user
> was using the "wrong case" as defined by the "standard".
Now, that is a good argument for the text inherited from Son-of-1036.
Headers are case-insensitive, and any agent that does not understand
that is broken. Still, headers are not only looked at by machines. and
only confusion if a newsreader starts to spit out headers like
"neWsgrOUps: " just to be coOl.
> Here's a good example. Site B uses a scoring system with nocems, etc, and
> records the nocem data in a local header. Site C gets news from B and
> likes B's system. THIS draft says that site C MUST remove (not MAY remove,
> not SHOULD remove, MUST remove) the header that carries the information it
> wants. That's absurd.
There is nothing of the definition of Local Headers, that says that
this is a local header. Just because it is inserted at a certain site
does not make it local.
However, the draft does not claim to include a list of local headers at
this point, but only Xref is given as an example. I seem to recall that
I called for such lists under the respective paragraphs, but was told
that this was not a bright idea.
Note also that in section 8.3 "Duties of a Relaying Agent" that "Relaying
agents MUST NOT alter, delete or rearrange any part of an article expect
for the Path and Xref Headers." So as a relaying agent, site C must pass
this scoring header on. As a serving agent it may remove them, though;
at least section 8.4 is silent on this point.
> To claim by use of a MUST that I am creating some interoperability problem
> by typing my name at the end of an article is patently absurd. Nothing
> breaks, nothing blinks, nothing even hiccups. So then I start typing my
> name and my phone number at the end. Then I start adding my street
> address. At what point does something start breaking? When does news go
> POOF if I don't use a sigdash? What justifies this MUST?
Charles's argument is apparently that this phone number etc at the end is
not a signature but vanilla body text. I have to admit that there is some
sense in it. But of course nothing goes into 100 pieces if you make your
address information part of the plain text; the signature itself is not
compulsory. (For instance this message does not include a signature.)
> For example, some groups have been using keywords in the subject to help
> readers select articles. Are you telling me that a group that finds that
> the keywords "RE" or "SV" are appropriately descriptive should find those
> keywords stripped from its articles because an ignorant agent thought they
> were "back references", even though "back reference" has a simple and
> explicit definition that neither of those fits?
The draft only says MAY (or even "may"), and this could well be a good
thing. Maybe it may all seem theoretical to you, but learn some Swedish
and hang around in the Swedish newsgroups for a taste of the real world.
-- Erland Sommarskog, Stockholm, sommar@algonet.se