Subject: rE: Substantive edits to draft-ietf-usefor-usefor-07

From: John Stanley <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 11:17:02 -0700 (PDT)

Dan Kohn <dan@xxxxxxxxxxx>:

> A "newsgroup" is a single forum having a name and intended for articles 
>on a specific topic. An article is "posted" to a single newsgroup or 
>"crossposted" to several newsgroups. Crossposting uses a single article; 
>it is different from posting the same text in different articles to 
>different newsgroups.

Crossposting does not use articles, it creates them. Further, even 
crossposting creates multiple articles (each one gets a different article
number), but only one message (a single message id).

Also, a "newsgroup" may have related attachments, such as a mailing list,
so it is not necessarily a "single forum".

:::::
A "newsgroup" is a forum having a name and which is intended for 
articles relating to a specific topic. An article may be "posted" to a 
single newsgroup, be "posted" to multiple newsgroups, or be "crossposted" 
to several newsgroups. Crossposting differs from posting to multiple 
newsgroups in that only one copy of the message is created and 
transported, even though it shows up as different articles in different 
newsgroups. Each crossposted article contains the same message id, but may 
have different newsgroup-specific identifiers. For reasons of efficiency 
and netiquette, crossposting is almost always the preferred method of
submitting an article to multiple newsgroups.
:::::

---

From: Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 16:15:03 -0400 (EDT)

John Stanley <[email-masked]> wrote (in suggested text):

> Each crossposted article contains the same message id, but may 
> have different newsgroup-specific identifiers.

Huh?  Since there's only _one_ article, it contains _several_
newsgroups in the appropriate header.  (Whatever a "newsgroup-specific
identifier" is, the article might have several, but can't have
different ones for different newsgroups.)

Seth

---

From: Dan Kohn <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 20:13:24 -0700

On Apr 17, 2006, at 11:17 AM, John Stanley wrote:

>> A "newsgroup" is a single forum having a name and intended for  
>> articles on a specific topic. An article is "posted" to a single  
>> newsgroup or "crossposted" to several newsgroups. Crossposting  
>> uses a single article; it is different from posting the same text  
>> in different articles to different newsgroups.
>
> articles relating to a specific topic. An article may be "posted"  
> to a single newsgroup, be "posted" to multiple newsgroups, or be  
> "crossposted" to several newsgroups. Crossposting differs from  
> posting to multiple newsgroups in that only one copy of the message  
> is created and transported, even though it shows up as different  
> articles in different newsgroups. Each crossposted article contains  
> the same message id, but may have different newsgroup-specific  
> identifiers. For reasons of efficiency and netiquette, crossposting  
> is almost always the preferred method of

I don't mean to be pedantic, but I thought the definition of a unique  
article is that it has a unique message-ID.  When you post a proto- 
article to multiple newsgroups, the article in each newsgroup gets a  
unique message-ID, and therefore one can't really post the same  
article to multiple newsgroups, except by crossposting.  If I'm wrong  
about this, than John Stanley's language is fine.

            - dan
-- 
Dan Kohn <mailto:[email-masked]>
<http://www.dankohn.com/>  <tel:+1-415-233-1000>

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Apr 2006 20:24:46 -0700

>> Each crossposted article contains the same message id, but may have
>> different newsgroup-specific identifiers.

> Huh?  Since there's only _one_ article, it contains _several_ newsgroups
> in the appropriate header.  (Whatever a "newsgroup-specific identifier"
> is, the article might have several, but can't have different ones for
> different newsgroups.)

I think you have that almost exactly backwards.  An article may have
different newsgroup-specific identifiers in different newsgroups but may
not have more than one in a particular newsgroup.  (Read "article number"
for "newsgroup-specific identifier" if this isn't clear.)

-- 
Russ Allbery ([email-masked])             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

---

From: Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 15:25:52 -0400 (EDT)

> for "newsgroup-specific identifier" if this isn't clear.)

That's what I missed: that the "newsgroup-specific identifier" wasn't
actually part of the article.

Thanks,

Seth

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2006 18:09:13 -0700

>> different newsgroup-specific identifiers in different newsgroups but
>> may not have more than one in a particular newsgroup.  (Read "article
>> number" for "newsgroup-specific identifier" if this isn't clear.)

> actually part of the article.

In most current implementations, it is in the article as delivered to a
client.  It's in the Xref header, as a list of pairs of newsgroups and
identifiers in that newsgroup.