Re: Newsgroups

["Charles Lindsey" <chl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In <Pine.LNX.4.64.0712131150150.17117@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> stanley@xxxxxxxx writes:

>>Whichever way we fix it, it is bound to upset someone, but not fixing it
>>at all will upset everyone.

>Not so. Our attempt at redefining existing usage will not be a fix, it 
>will be a fiasco. The only reasonable "fix" we could apply would be to 
>make it official: "a newsgroups header in email means nothing", since the 
>only problem is when someone thinks it does mean something, and it cannot
>mean two opposing things.

If people read that it "means nothing", then they will conclude "so I can
safely carry on putting what I have always put (whichever that was)". Which
will achieve nothing. Tne point of USEAGE is that it will describe "Best
Practice", rather than defining explicit syntax/semantics. The point of
defining "Best Practice" is that it thereby deprecates "Worst Practice".
There will be no overnight effect, but over time usage will migrate to the
"Best" version, because people will be able to use USEAGE to beat the
"wrong"doers over the head.

It's a bit like "top posting". There is an RFC which deprecates it. It
doesn't prevent it, but it enables people to flame top-posters, and the
result is that we get relatively little of it.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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