From: J.B.Moreno (planb@newsreaders.com)
Date: Fri Mar 12 2004 - 14:45:09 CST
On 3/12/04 9:31 AM, Bruce Lilly at <blilly@erols.com> wrote:
> J.B.Moreno wrote:
>
>> That's not my point of disagreement -- I really do think that the "Re: " is
>> part of the syntax...
>
> Can you substantiate that in engineering terms based on RFC 822 syntax
> (text and EBNF), which has been the basis for Usenet articles for at least
> two decades, or based on RFC 2822 syntax (text and ABNF) which is currently
> the basis for the Usefor draft?
Are you asking me to point out where they defined the syntax to mean that?
If so, they don't, at least not explicitly. If that's your question, then
my answer is "the made a mistake, we shouldn't make the same mistake".
>> Saying that the Subject is only for display, isn't true
>
> Please provide an example of use unrelated to display. Show how it affects
> filing, transfer, expiration, etc. of the article.
Filtering determines whether something is filed or not. Spam filtering
determines whether it is transfered or not. I know that some of the
webboards with NNTP interfaces don't expire FAQs and may determine this in
part based upon the Subject.
>> and even if it was...the whole point of news is to display the articles, if
>> that doesn't happen it's a failure.
>
> What's your point? Nobody is proposing to make the Subject field optional
> or to forbid its inclusion in an article.
>
> Are you saying that if my Subject field says
> Subject: Re: Re:
> and it is displayed as "Re:", that that is a failure? You may be right.
>
> Are you saying that if an article contains a header field
> X-foo: bar baz
> and if that field isn't displayed by every reading agent it is a failure?
> If so, then you have a rather loose definition of "failure". If that's
> not what you mean, then you need to clarify your meaning substantially.
I'm saying that the point of a message is to be read, a message that isn't
read might as well not have been sent. It doesn't matter if it's not read
because it got misfiled or expired immediately or because it grabbed the
Subject from an article 3 groups over. If a newsreader author follows our
rules, and as a result of doing so, the messages his clients send out,
aren't read when by ignoring our rules they would have been, then our rules
should be ignored.
The last leg of propagation is between a person's ears.
> You do understand that while display of message (whether a Usenet article
> or any other type of Internet Text Message) content is an essential
> part of the *application*, not *all* message content is part of the
> *protocol* -- or maybe you don't understand that? If you need clarification
> on that matter, please say so.
The protocol exist to deliver the content, if the content can't be delivered
because of the protocol, then there's a problem with the protocol.
>> The "Re: " contains information -- it says that the Subject was inherited
>> (give or take some minor changes)
>
> It does not contain the information that you claim that it contains:
> Subject: Re: is an abominable hack
What does that have to do with anything? Possibly it's blasphemous as well,
it's there, it's used, you don't like it, tough.
> appearing in an article which is not a followup most certainly does *NOT*
> "say[...] that the Subject was inherited" or anything remotely like that.
Sure it does. It can be mistaken, but so what -- the References header can
be mistaken as well. That just means someone or something screwed up, it
doesn't mean that it's meaningless.
> If a followup agent preparing a followup to that article presents the same
> Subject field to the followup poster, who then places double-quote marks
> around "Re:", any "information" in the unquoted text has been removed by
> that followup poster.
The poster is allowed to make changes, by putting the double-quote marks in,
he's changed the Subject -- i.e. it's no longer the Subject as inherited
from the previous message. Sounds like information to me.
>> and this information is used.
>
> So this non-existent information (really a misinterpretation) is (ab)used --
> for what (other than display or display-related processing) you haven't been
> able to say. And somehow this "information" gets from the followup agent to
> some other reading agent even though the poster has elided it (which he is
> explicitly permitted to do)? WTF?
If he removes it, then *that* information is conveyed!!!!
The poster can really only "remove" the information by putting in "Re: "
when he shouldn't, and that's a lot less common than editing the References
header by hand (which I see about once a day).
-- J.B. Moreno