From: Bruce Lilly (blilly@erols.com)
Date: Fri May 16 2003 - 10:21:27 CDT
Charles Lindsey wrote:
> There has been some recent discussion about "Re: ".
[...]
Indeed there has been.
> Anyway, I have provided two texts for your consideration. One treats
> "Re: " syntactically, and is essentially what is in the present
> draft, apart from bits moved into USEAGE. The other is weaker, and
> non-syntactic.
[...]
There was discussion about dropping the "Re: " hack entirely, and some
support for doing so during the discussion. Why then is that not a third
option in the draft? Heavy-handedness on the editor's part perhaps?
[...]
> [The alternative text is weaker, though correct usage of "Re " is still
> a requirement.]
There is no such thing as 'correct usage of "Re "'.
In both cases, my earlier comment about ABNF production naming still applies:
if we're going to reference 2822 yet have different syntax, ABNF productions
which differ from 2822's should be named differently to avoid confusion.
Specifically in this case, "unstructured".
> Newsgroups
[...]
> The approach I have taken now is to state that newsgroup-names are ultimately
> determines by those responsible for creating new groups, but that some
> restrictions are necessary. And I then give the three basic rules as a default,
> or starting point, and then refer the read to USEAGE for a full discussion. So
> their status in USEFOR is "advisory, but you better think twice before exceeding
> them".
>
> So here is the full text of the relevant part of the Newsgroup header:
>
> The format of newsgroup-names is ultimately determined by the
> policies of those administrative agencies which have the
> responsibility for creating new newsgroups within the various
> hierarchies of Usenet. There are traditional, social and technical
> arguments why there should be restrictions on these formats (and the
> force of the technical ones changes over time with developments in
> computers and operating systems).
>
> These issues are discussed more fully in [USEAGE]. The following
> policy restrictions represent what is considered safe and appropriate
> at the present time. Although purely advisory, hierarcy
Typo: hierarchy (caught by spell-checker)
> administrators should consider the consequences carefully before
> allowing them to be exceeded.
>
> 1. Uppercase letters are forbidden.
I believe that "forbidden" is too strong. Generation should be prohibited
for the near future, but the goal should be conformance to RFC 1958 (viz.
public names should be case-insensitive). Consequently, conforming
implementations should be required to recognize newsgroup (and distribution)
names in a case-insensitive manner.
[...]
> 3. A component is limited to 30 component-graphemes and a newsgroup-
> name to 71 component-graphemes (counting also the '.'s separating
> the components).
How about changing the obscure "graphemes" to "octets" or "characters".