From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: Mon Jun 02 2003 - 10:59:47 CDT
In <3ECF9CB6.3040204@Sonietta.blilly.com> Bruce Lilly <blilly@erols.com> writes:
>... and as newsgroup names appear in header fields, if length of
>those names (and/or their components) is an issue at all, we should
>say something relevant in USEFOR. As discussed earlier, obviously the
>common message format maximum line length (in the absence of a documented
>mechanism for splitting and combining names, such as permitting line
>folding between components) is a technical limit on length. We probably
>don't need to mention that, as it's implicit in referring to 2822[*].
>But there may be lower limits imposed by NNTP and IMAP protocols and/or
>implementations, and if so we should incorporate those limits into the
>syntax (with mention of the technical limit(s) as an issue in addition
>to display where newsgroup name/component length is discussed in USEAGE).
There are no real technical limits on the length of a newsgroup-name,
though there are lots of social limits. NNTP has a 512 character limit on
the length of commands (which sometimes incorporate newsgroup-names), but
I don't think anybody would seriously contemplate newsgroup-names that
long.
>Note:
>* unless the must-have-non-whitespace-content-on-first-field-line rule
>remains a MUST, in which case we need to at least note that a long
>newsgroup name that fits on the first line of a Newsgroups header field
>is still unacceptably ling because it will fail to fit on the first
>line of a Followup-To header field.
You have just produced a good reason to limit the length of a
newsgroup-name to 66 characters in place of the 71 in our present draft.
Would anybody object if I changed that 71 to 66? Note that it is, in any
case, only an advisory limit which hierarchy admins can choose to follow
or not (and will be discussed in more detail, in USEAGE).
> > The most we
>> might do in USEFOR is an advisory remark that keeping within 79 characters
>> was a Good Thing.
>At one time, 79 might have been an appropriate magic number, but
>that time (if it in fact existed) has passed.
Why do you suppose that 79 is no longer the appropriate magic number?
Anyone who posts articles with lines longer than that without good cause
(long URLs are the usual counter-example) is likely to be flamed in most
places on Usenet, as is anyone who complains that his reader will not
accept lines of at least that length.
-- 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@clerew.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