Subject: Re: Differences between RFC 2822 and Usefor (fwd)

From: John Stanley <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2005 11:16:59 -0700 (PDT)

"Charles Lindsey" <chl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

> No, USEPRO-03 does not say it is optional.

Read what I wrote, Charles, and respond to that. I said:

>USEFOR-03 says it is defined as found in RFC2822, and is optional. 

USEFOR is where the definition appears, and that definition defers to 
RFC2822 for almost everything. One of the areas it does NOT change RFC2822 
is in the requirement for use of the header, which says "SHOULD". There is 
no MUST, either in RFC2822 or USEFOR. The header is optional, even in 
followups.

Now, I realize that YOU say that RFC2119 "SHOULD" is a requirement of some
kind, but RFC2119 actually says that it is a recommendation, and
"required" and "recommended" are two very different words with two very 
different meanings, even when one of them carries an additional adjective 
"STRONG".

---

From: John Stanley <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2005 14:17:21 -0700 (PDT)

Richard Clayton <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

> one article they will cope with --

Many articles they will cope with, I hope. Many articles have no 
References header.

>-- but if no articles
>have References then they will fail to function as their users currently
>expect. I call that broken, and so will they.

Once again we are stuck with the sometimes unusual expectations of USENET 
users. And how did we get to "no articles have References headers?" Are 
you imagining some prohibition on the use of References headers? 

>I believe that References:  should be compulsory, 

RFC2119 defines when MUST is appropriate. This is not such a time.

>however,
>now it's clear that there's the prospect of (a) the effort finishing
>(one way or another) and (b) posters being permitted to break
>"threading" (and if there is no language to compel them, then they will)
>then it is time to speak up

Posters are always permitted to "break threading". They will always be 
permitted to "break threading".

Seth Breidbart <sethb@xxxxxxxxx>:

>Define "break".  If you mean "crash and burn and let the magic smoke
>out of the computer" then no. 

Well, let's see. "Break" as in "fail to process articles", ok? No, since 
we are talking about interoperability, that would have to be "fail to 
accept articles or to pass them to other news system software." 

I read news today. I found articles (gasp!) without References headers. My 
newsreader did not break. It simply did not care.

>If you mean "Do the wrong thing (from
>the viewpoints of both the poster and reader)" then yes.

Since this is a display issue, what is "the wrong thing" and how do you 
know when it happens? "Wrong" is completely subjective. Subjective is not 
how one writes standards. In this specific case, some people think that 
"right" is "sort by subject content". Some think that "sort by precursor" 
is "right" and "sort by subject" is wrong. Who is "right" and who is 
"wrong"? 

>If a random set of Subject header content was changed to "3" the
>system wouldn't collapse, either; so why is specifying that some
>headers MUST NOT be changed by transit servers an interoperability
>issue?

Because transport agents are DEFINED not to change the message they are 
transporing, and the header you are referring to is a USER controlled 
header, not a news system controlled one. 

>Answer: That's doing _the wrong thing_.

That's your opinion. I could imagine a system where the Subject header IS 
changed in transport that is quite correct. In fact, some email spam 
systems do exactly that.