From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Tue Jul 09 2002 - 11:42:21 CDT
In <200207041524.QAA08572@clw.cs.man.ac.uk> Charles Lindsey <chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk> writes:
>I think we are agreed on the encoding to be used for newsgroup names
>when emailing to moderators and other gatewaying applications. We may
>not yet be agreed on exactly when this encoding is to be used, or how it
>stands alongside encapsulation, but I think the important first step is
>to get the algoruthm properly described, so here is some text.
Well nobody has commented upon my text so far, so it is time to move on to
the consequentials.
First, the easy bit in 8.8.1. I had already posted changes there necessary
for our new treatment of RFC 2047, UTF-8 and "non-UTF-8", so it is just
necessary to fix the paragraph concerning the Newsgroups-header during
gatewaying.
o To ensure full compliance with the Email standards it is necessary
to encode words containing UTF8-xtra-chars according to [RFC 2047]
(but only where permitted by that standard, i.e. within phrases
and unstructured headers, although many user agents will display
this encoding correctly in other contexts also). Likewise, within
parameters the proper encoding is that defined in [RFC 2231]. In
both cases, it is preferable to encode using the charset UTF-8,
although it might be wise first to confirm that that is indeed the
charset which had been used (see 4.4.1).
o In the case of newsgroup-names, as found in Newsgroups-headers,
Followup-To-headers and some Control-headers, [RFC 2047] is not
applicable (even though some mail reading agents might
nevertheless display it correctly). Therefore, it is necessary to
use the encoding described in section 5.5.2. Even if it is not
decoded at the far end, it is preferable to display such an
encoded form than to display nothing at all. Note, however, that
such encoded newsgroup-names MUST be restored to their canonical
form before reinjection into any Netnews system.
The next bit, in the Duties of an Injecting Agent are possibly more
contentious. Here are the old text, followed by what I now propose:
11.If the Newsgroups line contains one or more moderated groups and
the article does NOT contain an Approved-header, then the
injecting agent MUST forward it to the moderator of the first
(leftmost) moderated group listed in the Newsgroups line via
email. The complete article SHOULD be encapsulated (headers and
all) within the email, preferably using the Content-Type
"application/news-transmission" (6.21.6.1).
NOTE: This standard does not prescribe how the email address of
the moderator is to be determined, that being a matter of policy
to be arranged by the agency responsible for the oversight of
each hierarchy. Nevertheless, there do exist various agents
worldwide which provide the service of forwarding to moderators,
and the address to use with them is obtained by replacing each
'.' in the newsgroups-name with a '-'. For example, articles
intended for "news.announce.important" would be emailed to
"new-announce-important@forwardingagent.example".
In the event that the newsgroup-name contains any UTF8-xtra-
char, this will result in an addr-spec whose local-part is not
consistent with the present email standards ([RFC 2822]). It is
anticipated that extensions to those standards currently under
consideration will in due course provide means for encoding such
local-parts but, in the meantime, agencies responsible for
creating moderated newsgroups with such names will need to make
special arrangements.
12.Otherwise, the injecting agent forwards the article to one or more
relaying or serving agents.
[Proposed new text]
11.If the Newsgroups line contains no moderated groups, or if it
contains an Approved-header, the injecting agent forwards the
article to one or more relaying or serving agents.
12.Otherwise, when the Newsgroups line contains one or more moderated
groups and the article does NOT contain an Approved-header, the
injecting agent MUST forward it to the moderator of the first
(leftmost) moderated group listed in the Newsgroups line via
email. There are two possibilities for doing this:
(a) The complete article is encapsulated (headers and all) within
the email, preferably using the Content-Type
"application/news-transmission" (6.21.6.1). This method has
the advantage of removing any possible conflict between
Netnews and Email headers, or of changes to those headers
during transport through email (and in particular, it ensures
that any UTF8-xtra-chars within those headers will pass
safely through any email transport even if it is 8bit-
unsafe).
(b) The article is sent as an email as it stands, with the
addition of such extra headers (e.g. a To-header) as are
necessary for an email. Since the article is, in effect,
being gatewayed into Email, the provisions of section 8.8.1
apply. In particular, if the headers contain any UTF8-xtra-
chars, it may be necessary to apply encodings, specifically
the encoding defined in section 5.5.2 in the case of the
article's Newsgroups-header.
Although both of these methods have seen use in the past, the
preponderance of current usage on Usenet has been for method (b)
and many moderators are ill-prepared to deal with method (a).
Therefore, method (a) SHOULD NOT be used until such time as the
majority of moderators are able to accept it.
[That would be coupled with a reuqirement in the Duties of Moderators
that moderators SHOULD accept both methods, though we fully realize that
will take time.]
13.This standard does not prescribe how the email address of the
moderator is to be determined, that being a matter of policy to be
arranged by the agency responsible for the oversight of each
hierarchy. Nevertheless, there do exist various agents worldwide
which provide the service of forwarding to moderators, and the
address to use with them is obtained as follows:
(a) Each '.' in the newsgroups-name is replaced with a '-'.
(b) If the newsgroups-name contains any UTF8-xtra-char, it is
encoded as described in section 5.5.2.
(c) The result of these operations is used as the local-part of
the mailbox of the agent. For example, articles intended for
"news.announce.important" would be emailed to "new-announce-
important@forwardingagent.example".
[There are further consequential changes in the Duties of moderators and
in the usage of application/news-transmission, but I think we need to
establish (or not) the policy implied by my wording above before
proceeding further.]
-- 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