From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: Sat Jun 07 2003 - 15:27:54 CDT
I originally moved the actions to be taken resulting from the
Mail-Copies-To header to USEAGE. Thus the header had a meaning, but
there was no requirement to pay attention to it. A couple of people
asked for it to be put back, and I have now done this.
Observe that there were a couple of "Oughts" in the original text. I
have changed these to SHOULDs, with the proviso "if it has the necessary
capability". The point is that there is no REQUIREMENT for a News Agent
to have emailing capability (though we all know that most do).
I would also like to move these actions to the "Duties of a Followup
Agent" at a later stage.
Here is the revised text:
0.1. Mail-Copies-To
The Mail-Copies-To-header indicates whether or not the poster wishes
to have followups to an article emailed in addition to being posted
to Netnews and, if so, establishes the address to which they should
be sent.
The content syntax makes use of syntax defined in [RFC 2822].
header =/ Mail-Copies-To-header
Mail-Copies-To-header
= "Mail-Copies-To" ":" SP Mail-Copies-To-content
Mail-Copies-To-content
= copy-addr / [CFWS] ( "nobody" / "poster" ) [CFWS]
copy-addr = address-list
The keyword "nobody" indicates that the poster does not wish copies
of any followup postings to be emailed. This indication is widely
seen as a very strong wish, and is to be taken as the default when
this header is absent.
The keyword "poster" indicates that the poster wishes a copy of any
followup postings to be emailed to him.
Otherwise, this header contains a copy-addr to which the poster
wishes a copy of any followup postings to be sent.
NOTE: Some existing practice uses the keyword "never" in place
of "nobody" and "always" in place of "poster". These usages are
deprecated, but followup agents MAY observe them.
The automatic default actions of a followup agent in the various
cases (subject to manual override by the user) are as follows:
[These actions should probably be moved to the "Duties of a Followup
Agent" in Chapter 8 in a future draft.]
nobody (or when the header is absent)
The followup agent SHOULD NOT email a copy of the followup to the
poster of the precursor.
poster
The followup agent SHOULD (if it has the necessary capability)
email a copy of the followup, which MUST then be sent to the
address(es) in the Reply-To-header, and in the absence of that to
the address(es) in the From-header.
copy-addr
The followup agent SHOULD likewise email a copy of the followup,
which MUST then be sent to the copy-addr.
Whether or not this header will also find similar usage for replies
to messages sent to mailing lists falls outside the scope of this
standard.
When emailing a copy, the followup agent SHOULD also include a
"Posted-And-Mailed: yes" header (6.9).
Naturally, these texts have now disappeared from USEAGE, except for the
following little bit which is left behind:
A followup agent ought, when the Mail-Copies-To-header is absent, and
especially when it is presnt and there is an explicit "nobody", to
issue a warning and ask for confirmation if the user attempts email
as well as followup.
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