From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: Mon Aug 23 2004 - 12:06:41 CDT
In <4120E3D6.80300@mibsoftware.com> "Forrest J. Cavalier III" <forrest@mibsoftware.com> writes:
>Charles Lindsey wrote:
> > No, that is too wide. For a start, it implies no 'direction' (it would
> > allow A to be a followup to B and B to be a followup to A).
> >
>>
>> If you want a changed definition of "followup" (I don't, but some do",
>Hey C'mon! Don't feed the trolls, OK?
>> then what is wrong with the one I posted here on Aug 5 in your "webster"
>> thread?
>>
>I did not receive any messages from you dated August 5, either directly or
>through the list. There is no article from you to that thread (on any
>date) in the August 2004 archive at rkive.landfield.com
Odd! For some bizarre reason that message acquired the following From-header:
From: "\"Charles Lindsey\"" <chl@clerew.man.ac.uk>
Seems to be related to the fact that I "Resent" it following some delivery
failure, but I do not recall the exact details, and I have been unable to
reproduce the effect.
But it seems that the Landield mail expander did not like it :-( . There
was also one other article with such a header, which I shall have to
repost.
Anyway, here is the article again:
Message-Id: <200408091514.i79FEa311639@clerew.man.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 05 Aug 2004 22:29:22 +0100
From: "\"Charles Lindsey\"" <chl@clerew.man.ac.uk>
To: "Forrest J. Cavalier III" <mibsoft@epix.net>,
usenet-format@rkive.landfield.com
Subject: Re: webster.com defines follow up
References: <4108EDB4.608@epix.net>
On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 08:29:40 -0400, Forrest J. Cavalier III
<mibsoft@epix.net> wrote:
> As I read the webster.com definition below, posting PART II of a FAQ
> is
> an action "following up" on PART I, (because Part II is "similar,
> related, or supplementary".) The text under discussion refers to
> such articles as "not followups" which is at best confusing.
No, we have moved beyond that text now. The most recent text which I
have published, based on a wording suggested by yourself, is the
following:
Articles which are followups MUST, and articles which are parts of
multipart postings such as FAQs or are otherwise intended to be
grouped together for purposes of display MAY, have a
References-header.
Where the meaning of "followups" is as defined in the present draft.
Now if, instead of that, you prefer to change the definition of
"followup" and leave the References-header text alone, then the
wording needs to be broadly the same (because we are trying to capture
the same intent regarding multipart FAQs etc). So the definition of
"followup" would have to be something like:
A "followup" is an article containing a response to the contents
of an earlier article (its "precursor"), or which is otherwise
intended to be grouped with that article for purposes of display
(e.g. as part of a multipart posting such as a FAQ).
I think we have established by now that the two definitions are
equivalent so far as defining the protocol is concerned. However, if
the definition of followup is changed, then you have to look carefully
at all the uses of that term in the draft to see if something has
inadvertently got broken, and indeed there is, in the vary next
paragraph. You now have to change the definiition of "followup agent"
to the following:
A "followup agent" is a combination of reading agent and posting
agent that aids in the preparation and posting of such responses.
Formerly it said "of followups", but if you don't change it then you
will find that if the 1st part of that FAQ has a Followup-To-header
pointing to a different set of Newsgroups,, then all the subsequent
parts of the FAQ should be posted to the second set of Newsgroups, and
not to the first.
This shows the great danger of changing definitions of fundamental
terms without being fully aware of the consequences. In this case, I
don't think there are any further 'gotchas', but the new definition is
still a pretty poor fit in many other places where the term is used.
That is why I still prefer to change the wording in the
References-header, because I am pretty sure there are no 'gotchas'
hidden in there.
Anyway, there are my proposed texts for the two methods of
implementing this change. If we are agreed that those texts are
satisfactory, then we can proceed to make a choice between them.
-- 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