From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Jan 09 2001 - 13:55:52 CST
Here are the affected pieces. There were only two places where I thought
there should be an Ought, though I have also drawn attention to a few
SHOULDs that some poeple might want to change (I don't). There are also
a couple of other changes that you need to look at.
5. Mandatory Headers
5.2. From
Any mailbox in the From-content MUST belong to one of the poster(s)
of the article, or be a mailbox which he is authorized by its owner
to use, or be an address which ends in the top level domain of
".invalid" [RFC 2606].
[Alternative Dave Barr wording:
The mailbox in the From-content SHOULD be a valid address, belonging to
the poster(s) of the article, or person or agent on whose behalf the
post is being sent (see Sender). When, for political or other reasons
the poster wishes to indicate that the address is not a valid email
address, the From-content SHOULD be an address which ends in the top
level domain of ".invalid" [RFC 2606].
NOTE: The use of ".invalid" is to provide an aid to mail systems so that
addresses deliberately intended to be malformed can be identified and
delivery aborted. User agents MUST identify such addresses and require
the user to alter the address when attempting a personal email reply.
Injecting agents that have authentication information MAY choose to
enforce the From-content based on the poster's authenticated identity.
]
[Y1 it is my intention to adopt that wording.]
5.4. Subject
The Subject header contains a short string identifying the topic of
the message. This is an inheritable header (4.2.2.2) to be copied
into the Subject header of any followup, in which case the new
header-content SHOULD then default to the string "Re: " (a "back
reference") followed by the contents of the pure-subject of the
precursor. Any leading "Re: " in the pure-subject MUST be stripped.
[Y2 I hope nobody want to put any Oughts in there.]
5.5. Newsgroups
The Newsgroups header's content specifies which newsgroup(s) the
article is posted to. It is an inheritable header (4.2.2.2) which
SHOULD then become the default Newsgroups header of any followup,
unless a Followup-To header is present to prescribe otherwise.
[Y3 I hope nobody want to put any Oughts in there.]
The inclusion of folding white space within a Newsgroups-content is a
newly introduced feature in this standard. It MUST be accepted by all
conforming implementations (relaying agents, serving agents and
reading agents). Posting agents should be aware that such postings
may be rejected by overly-critical old-style relaying agents. When a
sufficient number of relaying agents are in conformance, posting
agents SHOULD generate such whitespace in the form of <CRLF WS> so as
to keep the length of lines in the relevant headers (notably
Newsgroups and Followup-To) to no more than than 79 characters (or
other agreed policy limit - see 4.5). Before such critical mass
occurs, injecting agents MAY reformat such headers by removing
whitespace inserted by the posting agent, but relaying agents MUST
NOT do so.
[Y4 I hope nobody want to put any Oughts in there.]
Whilst there is no longer any technical reason to limit the length of
a component (formerly, it was limited to 14 characters) nor to limit
the total length of a newsgroup-name, it should be noted that these
names are also used in the newsgroups line (7.1.2) where an overall
policy limit applies, and moreover excessively long names can be
exceedingly inconvenient in practical use. Agencies responsible for
individual hierarchies Ought therefore, as a matter of policy, to set
reasonable limits for the length of a component and of a newsgroup-
name. In the absence of such explicit policies, the default limits
are 30 characters and 71 characters respectively.
[Y5 Ought was SHOULD]
[If the checkpolicies proposal is included in the Standard, there should
be a reference to it here.]
Posters SHOULD use only the names of existing newsgroups in the
Newsgroups header. However, it is legitimate to cross-post to
newsgroup(s) which do not exist on the posting agent's host, provided
that at least one of the newsgroups DOES exist there, and followup
agents SHOULD accept this (posting agents MAY accept it, but Ought at
least to alert the poster to the situation and request confirmation).
Relaying agents MUST NOT rewrite Newsgroups headers in any way, even
if some or all of the newsgroups do not exist on the relaying agent's
host. Serving agents MUST NOT create new newsgroups simply because an
unrecognised newsgroup-name occurs in a Newsgroups header (see 7.1
for the correct method of newsgroup creation).
[Y6 Ought was SHOULD. I hope nobody wants to change any of the other
SHOULDs.]
5.6.3. The tail-entry
For historical reasons, the tail-entry (i.e. the rightmost entry in
the Path-content) is regarded as a "user name", and therefore MUST
NOT be interpreted as a site through which the article has already
passed. Moreover, the Path-content is not an E-mail address and MUST
NOT be used to contact the poster. Posting and/or injecting agents
MAY place any string here. When it is not an actual user name, the
string "not-for-mail" is often used, but in fact a simple "x" would
be sufficient.
Often this field will be the only entry in the region (known as the
pre-injection region) after the '%', although there may be entries
corresponding to machines traversed between the posting agent and the
injecting agent proper. In particular, injecting agents that receive
articles from many sources SHOULD include the identity of the source
machine connecting to do the injection, and possibly other
information enabling them to establish the circumstances of the
injection (provided it does not conflict with any genuine site
identifier). The '!' delimiter may be used freely within the pre-
injection region, although '/' and '?' are also appropriate if used
correctly.
[Y7 The above paragraph is to be rewritten as follows, now that we have
the Injector-Info header.]
Often this field will be the only entry in the region (known as the
pre-injection region) after the '%', although there may be entries
corresponding to machines traversed between the posting agent and the
injecting agent proper. In particular, injecting agents that receive
articles from many sources MAY include the identity of the source
machine connecting to do the injection, (or other information to
establish the circumstances of the injection) and SHOULD do so if no
Injector-Info header (6.19) has been added. Any such inclusion SHOULD
NOT conflict with any genuine site identifier. The '!' delimiter may
be used freely within the pre-injection region, although '/' and '?'
are also appropriate if used correctly.
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: +44 161 436 6131 Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
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