From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Thu Nov 15 2001 - 05:17:52 CST
In <Pine.LNX.4.10.10111141612180.26890-100000@spock.peak.org> John Stanley <stanley@peak.org> writes:
>I don't know what you mean by "with repost", but we most certainly do NOT
>assume that a reposted article is identical with its predecessor. The
>whole point of this header was to allow people to CHANGE articles and
>repost them.
If you "don't know", then you have obviously not read the draft, which
rather reduces the validity of your criticisms.
To recap: Under the present draft (specifically the bit I refer to as
feature #2), a Replaces header can have one of three "disposition"
parameters:
'replace' 'revise' 'repost'
'Replace' is an assertion that there are substantial changes. Newsreaders
should offer this article for viewing as normal.
'Revise' is an assertion that the only changes are trivial (e.g. typos
mended, broken URLs fixed). Users can configure their readers not to offer
such articles.
'Repost' is an assertion that the article is identical to the previous one
(or certainly its body is - obviously Date and Message-ID and suchlike
headers will have changed). Users can configure their readers not to offer
such articles.
>And further, even if there is something called "repost" to be "with", it
>is lunacy to assume that every reposted article is identical. "We" don't
>have to make any such assumption.
I don't see that it is "lunacy" to accept what the FAQ writer has
asserted. True, a malicious FAQ writer can do nasty things, but malicious
posters can do lots of nasty things and the regulars on the group usually
manage to ensure they don't get away with it.
>If someone doesn't want to see a regularly reposted article, HE can assume
>it hasn't changed and HE can killfile it. End of problem.
But then he doesn't get to see the genuinely changed one when it arrives.
>Nonsense. Some editor makes up a new feature, puts in in the draft, and
>suddenly the burden is to prove it should be removed?
Not so. No editor should put such a feature in the draft without a
sonsensus to do so. And, in this case, no editor did.
-- Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------ Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl Email: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk 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