Subject: Re: #1008 USEFOR 1.5 References: Final text on "followup"

From: John Stanley <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 09:33:38 -0700 (PDT)

"Charles Lindsey" <chl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

>>If we use RFC2822 terms differently than RFC2822, then we must have
>>already documented the difference and the justification somewhere.

>Indeed. Which is why USEFOR-04 documents it.

Great. So, I'll go to the IETF-USEFOR working group web page and look 
under "latest drafts" to see what we say ... ummmm, nope, no USEFOR-04.
According to us, our latest draft is USEFOR-03.

No problem, IETF itself has documents we don't provide to group members, 
so I'll use their copy.

I find:

   This specification uses the terms "header", "header name", and
   "header content" which are synonymous with the [RFC2822] terms
   "header field", "field name", and "field body" respectively.

Ok, documented, but absolutely no justification.

Under section three, I see ABNF where we use the term "field" for what we
want to call the "header name", so we we haven't completely changed usage.

I find no mention at all of the term "body", so not only do we not 
justify a change to that term, we don't document it.
 
While scanning the entire USEFOR-04 document for the word "header" I find 
a lot of places where the word occurs, which could easily be changed to 
follow RFC2822 terms using a good editing program. It would take more 
effort to list all the places than to just make the changes. 

So, what is the justification?

>The justification is long standing usage in the News community (and in the
>email community too), and in previous News documents.

Really? I've always learned that a message consists of a header and a 
body, and that the header consists of one or more header fields. Sometimes 
the word "line" is used instead of "field", but the essence is the same.

When a site that is hosting spam tells me to send the "full header" of 
email I report as spam, should I be asking them "which header do you want 
in its entirety?"

This "we're news, they're email" nonsense doesn't justify confusing and 
contradictory use of terms between the two. The fact that we are working 
on a technical standard an not a "USENET for Dummies" book means we ought 
to use the correct technical terms and not slang.

>Either we change all of the relevent terms consistently, or we change none
>of them. Mix'n'match certainly won't work.

That's right. And since there is no valid reason to use different terms 
(other than "ohh, look how hard it would be to change all the places it 
occurs...") we should be consistent.

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:59:41 GMT

>Ok, documented, but absolutely no justification.

Yes. There was justification in the old article-* drafts, but it has sadly
got lost in the rush to make USEFOR as brief (and unhelpful) as possible
:-( .

>want to call the "header name", so we we haven't completely changed usage.

Yes, that is in the ABNF, where we are giving a syntax rule that has to
interwork with the rest of the RFC 2822 syntax.

>email I report as spam, should I be asking them "which header do you want 

I have seen lots of messages from abuse@... sites, but never one asking me
to send a "full header". Lots of them asking me to send "full headers",
though.

-- 
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