From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clerew.man.ac.uk)
Date: Thu Mar 04 2004 - 11:06:44 CST
In <4046A2EC.4030401@erols.com> Bruce Lilly <blilly@erols.com> writes:
>J.B.Moreno wrote:
>> If I write a newsreader according to the standard as they want it written,
>> and when posting it inserts "Send $5 to planb@newsreaders.com via paypal to
>> earn millions: " before the user's subject, how is that not a compliant
>> article according to what they are saying?
>> What is it doing that the standard forbids it to do, or conversely what is
>> it NOT doing that the standard requires it to do?
>In this particular case, there is no syntax issue, and no protocol
>issue (because Subject field content is exclusively for human
>consumption).
And that is where you are entirely wrong. Subject-content is regularly
inspected by non-humans for various purposes, most of which turn out to
give some perceivable benefit to the users. That current practice is going
to continue whether we like it or not, and changing the protocol of
followup agents from what, de facto, is currently done is not going to
help anybody.
It IS a protocol issue. You may argue, if you like, that it is a minor and
relatively unimportant part of the protocol, and you might well be right.
You might argue that the wording used to describe it should be trimmed to
the minimum we can get away with, and I might agree with you. But what
you cannot deny is that it is a (small) part of the protocol, because if
you suddenly change it, then things that are currenly working quite
happily are going to stop working.
-- 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