Subject: #1021: USEFOR 3.1.5 Newsgroups - suggested texts

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 09:33:50 -0400

After checking all the mail on the #1021 thread, a suggestion...

- a number of restrictions are Good Ideas on newsgroup names.
  Particularly:
  - No all-digit components
  - No to., all, junk, test, example et al
  - Lowercase letters only
  - No leading + - _ (until assigned standard meaning)
  - No single-component newsgroup names

- however, a number of these constructs are *necessary* in order
  to access existing newsgroups such as alt.2600,
  sol.lists.freebsd.cvs.all.digest, "junk" and so on

Suggestion for a resolution in 3.1.5:

Let the ABNF be "rather liberal". In fact use the existing ABNF.
Let the text explain the various restrictions.

Alternatively, one could introduce the lowercase restriction using the 
"obs-" convention, like this:

   component-char = %x61-7A ; lowercase letters
                  / DIGIT / "+" / "-" / "_" / obs-component-char
   obs-component-char = %x41-5A ; uppercase letters

And restrict them like this:

  A newsgroup component SHOULD NOT consist of digits only, and
  SHOULD NOT contain uppercase letters. Such components MAY be
  used only to refer to existing groups that do not conform to this
  naming scheme.

The second part is the restriction (if any) on + - _.
I suggest (in order to be concrete; I'm not sure it's right):

   Components beginning with underline ("_") are reserved for use by
   future versions of this standard and MUST NOT be generated by
   posting agents (whether in Newsgroups headers or in newgroup control
   messages [USEPRO]).  However, such names MUST be accepted by
   relaying and serving agents.

   Components beginning with "+" and "-" ("_") are reserved for private
   use and MUST NOT be generated by posting agents (whether in
   Newsgroups headers or in newgroup control
   messages [USEPRO]) without a private prior agreement to do so.
   However, such names MUST be accepted by
   relaying and serving agents.

Suggestions for modifications are in order....

The third part is the restriction on component names. I've gathered the 
following from the discussion (the below is a suggestion for text):

The following newsgroup names are reserved, and MUST NOT be used as
the name of a newsgroup:

  Groups starting with the component "example"
  The group "poster"

The following newsgroup names have been used for specific purposes in 
various implementations and protocols, and MUST therefore not be used for 
the names of normal newsgroups. They MAY be used for their specific 
purpose, or by local agreement.

  Groups with one component
  Groups starting with "junk"
  Groups starting with "to"
  Groups containing the component "all"
  Groups containing the component "ctl"
  The group "control"
  The group "junk"

NOTE: Some newsgroups violating these restrictions exist. It is not a 
protocol violation to use these names to access those newsgroups.
------------------------------------------------------------

Suggestions for edits, or parts of this that belong in USEPRO not USEFOR?

                      Harald

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 11:15:00 -0700

>   used only to refer to existing groups that do not conform to this

I like this.  I would add "A newsgroup component SHOULD NOT be the string
"all" or "ctl", for compatibility with older news software" or something
along those lines, since the all and ctl thing is historically a format
consideration, not a protocol consideration.  .all is equivalent to .* in
that news software and is treated as a wildcard, so it actually has
different textual semantics, and posting to a group ending in .ctl was a
different way of designating control messages.  Here's the relevant text
from RFC 1036:

    Wildcards (e.g., the word "all") are never allowed in a "News-
    groups" line.  For example, a newsgroup comp.all is illegal,
    although a newsgroup rec.sport.football is permitted.

    For upward compatibility, messages that match the newsgroup pattern
    "all.all.ctl" should also be interpreted as control messages.  If no
    "Control" header is present on such messages, the subject is used as
    the control message.  However, messages on newsgroups matching this
    pattern do not conform to this standard.

> The second part is the restriction (if any) on + - _.  I suggest (in
> order to be concrete; I'm not sure it's right):

>    relaying and serving agents.

Works for me.

>   Groups starting with the component "example"

Right.

> various implementations and protocols, and MUST therefore not be used
> for the names of normal newsgroups. They MAY be used for their specific

>   Groups starting with "junk"

Hm, I'm not sure what to do with junk.foo.  It's actually a normal
newsgroup with no special properties, just a horribly confusing name
that's likely to run afoul of common newsfeed patterns.  To USEAGE, maybe?

>   Groups starting with "to"

Including the group "to".

>   Groups containing the component "ctl"

And also groups starting with "control".  The whole hierarchy is reserved
for special purposes.

> protocol violation to use these names to access those newsgroups.

Right.

> Suggestions for edits, or parts of this that belong in USEPRO not

I would take everything other than the uppercase, digits, all, ctl,
"poster", and special character notes and move it all to USEPRO, except
for junk.* which could probably go to USEAGE (although I wouldn't care too
much if it ended up in USEFOR).  USEPRO can then also include the
explanations of what junk is for, what control.* is for, how to.* is used,
etc.  There's enough material for a whole section on special newsgroup
names.

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

---

From: Henry Spencer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Jun 2005 15:23:46 -0400 (EDT)

On Tue, 14 Jun 2005, Harald Tveit Alvestrand wrote:
> "obs-" convention...  And restrict them like this:

This sounds like a good idea to me.

> The following newsgroup names are reserved, and MUST NOT be used...
> the names of normal newsgroups...

And that also sounds good.

> Suggestions for edits, or parts of this that belong in USEPRO not USEFOR?

Put it all in USEFOR.  As per previous posting, putting it in one place is
*much* better than arbitrarily subdividing it.

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       [email-masked]

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 13:54:52 GMT

>Let the text explain the various restrictions.

Yes, I like that.

>"obs-" convention, like this:

No, leave it as it is, and let the verbiage do the talking.

>  used only to refer to existing groups that do not conform to this

Some motivation would be helpful:
   (because of bad interactions with a widely deployed storage technique)
   (because some existing agents treat them case insensitievly)
and perhaps
   ... to existing groups created prior to this standard.

I shall make it clear in USEPRO that this rule is to be enforced in
newgroup control messages.

>   relaying and serving agents.

Actually, the "(whether in Newsgroups headers ...)" could be omitted
without loss. Again, I will ensure that USEPRO keeps them out of control
messages.

As worded, it seems that injecting agents MAY/SHOULD/MUST reject them.
Perhaps that last sentence is a USEPRO matter, and it needs simple
"However, such names MUST be accepted by other agents" (modulo query about
injecting agents).

>   Components beginning with "+" and "-" ("_") are reserved for private
                                          ^^^^^
					   Eh?
>   relaying and serving agents.

I think I would say "reserved for private arrangements between serving
agents and the reading agents which they serve".

Or it could say "reserved for read-only newsgroups, made available by
each serving agent to those reading agents which it serves".

And I think they should not be accepted by relaying agents etc. So it
should then say
    "hence they MUST NOT appear in Newsgroups and Followup-To headers,
though they MAY appear in Xref headers".

>  Groups starting with "junk"
                             ^
			     .
>  Groups starting with "to"
                           ^
			   .
>  Groups containing the component "ctl"

Add "Groups starting with "control." And I would omit groups of the form
"junk.*" (they are mighty peculiar, but do not actually conflict).

There seems to be some consensus that all these should be mentioned in
USEFOR. However, they could be split into two categories:

Ones that cause real harm:
   to.* *.all.* *.ctl.* poster

and ones that are just plain stupid
   example.* junk control control.*

Russ seems to want the second category to be relegated to USEFOR, but I
think it is better to mention them all here, even if the prohibitions
against them are somewhat milder.

>protocol violation to use these names to access those newsgroups.

That applies particularly to the second category (but their existence is
restricted to particular servers). Indeed, the treatment of
the second category should be more like I have suggested for the "+" and
"-" ones.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: [email-masked]      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 14:03:33 GMT

>consideration, not a protocol consideration.

But isn't that covered in Harald's list of forbidden things further down
(though I would agree that some motivation should be given for each
forbidden item)?

And I am not sure the format/protocol distinction means much here. These
things have been excluded from the format because they would cause the
protocols to screw up in various ways.

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 21:43:44 +0200

Charles Lindsey wrote:

> "hence they MUST NOT appear in Newsgroups and Followup-To
>  headers, though they MAY appear in Xref headers".

That's not about my UA using a "Followup-To: spamcop", right ?
I've no "private arrangements" with news.spamcop.net, it's an
ordinary public news server, but not a part of Usenet.  Bye.

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:12:36 +0200

> each serving agent to those reading agents which it serves".

I don't think we have a consensus that this is the only possible scope for 
these characters - I could be wrong.
The principle of the thing is: Either we limit them to private use (in 
which case we should say NOTHING about how they are used), or we limit them 
to a specific purpose (in which case we need text describing that purpose 
in enough detail to make sure we understand it).
I'd prefer to say nothing.

> though they MAY appear in Xref headers".

Relaying agents within or outside the private-agreement area?

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 09:46:39 -0700

Charles Lindsey <[email-masked]> writes:
> Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]> writes:

>> That's not about my UA using a "Followup-To: spamcop", right ?  I've no
>> "private arrangements" with news.spamcop.net, it's an ordinary public
>> news server, but not a part of Usenet.

> If spamcop is not a part of Usenet, then it is a cooperating subnet and
> it can do whatever it pleases.

If this standard, even the protocol pieces (!), is only intended to be
applicable to the world-wide public Usenet and not any private server or
other use of the protocols, we're all wasting our time.  A substantial
portion of the use of the Usenet protocols is outside the publically
distributed hierarchies, and those uses are frequently the most
interesting to support.  They have the same interoperability requirements
and need for a solid protocol as the public use of the Usenet article
format.

This cooperating subnet nonsense really has to go.

If you want to limit USEAGE to just the public Usenet, I don't really
care.  I've pretty much given up on USEAGE as a lost cause already.  But
please leave the protocol alone.  It applies to all use of netnews, not
just publically distributed hierarchies.

---

From: Henry Spencer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 13:08:36 -0400 (EDT)

> This cooperating subnet nonsense really has to go.

No, it remains important.  We want the standard to be as broadly
applicable as we can, but that doesn't mean we have to bless every
stupidity that's in existing use anywhere, just because some moron
once thought it was a good idea.

It's perfectly reasonable to say "using a one-component newsgroup name for
spamcop was a dumb idea and we aren't going to endorse it, but doing
stupid things in private is okay so long as it stays private; if you get a
chance to do it over again, do it right next time".

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       [email-masked]

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 12:01:13 GMT

In <[email-masked]> Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]> writes:

>ordinary public news server, but not a part of Usenet.

If spamcop is not a part of Usenet, then it is a cooperating subnet and it
can do whatever it pleases.

But are you sure that it has not leaked out onto usenet? There is nothing
to stop other servers from taking it and propagating it.

I still think it better to say that single-component groups are a Bad
Thing on Usenet. But it is one of my 'category 2' things. It is stupid,
but nothing breaks. So if the category 2 stuff is included in USEFOR (as
people seem to want), then a weaker form of words can be used against it.

In any case, USEPRO will discourage/deprecate newgroup messages for it.

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 10:24:57 -0700

> stupidity that's in existing use anywhere, just because some moron once
> thought it was a good idea.

Mail manages to avoid doing that while not introducing this cooperating
subnet concept.

It's not a crime to be noncompliant with our standard.  We don't need to
write in an escape clause that says that you're allowed to be noncompliant
if you talk to everyone in advance; that's just common sense.  The IETF
has no enforcement powers.  And in the meantime, this cooperating subnet
concept is constantly used within the WG to excuse some ignoring a huge
percentage of netnews deployments and argue for limiting the scope of our
work to the point where there would be no purpose served in continuing.

> It's perfectly reasonable to say "using a one-component newsgroup name
> for spamcop was a dumb idea and we aren't going to endorse it, but doing
> stupid things in private is okay so long as it stays private; if you get
> a chance to do it over again, do it right next time".

What part of the *protocol* does it break?

I don't see any protocol reason why the general discussion group for
Australia had to be aus.general instead of aus.  It would have been less
convenient to configure in particular news servers, INN included., but
while the convenience argument may (or may not) be a good one at a BCP
level, it's not a protocol argument.

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 22:22:40 +0200

> No, it remains important.  We want the standard to be as
> broadly applicable as we can, but that doesn't mean we have
> to bless every stupidity that's in existing use anywhere

If the USEFOR memo says "UAs MUST NOT use single component
names", then a conforming UA cannot post in the spamcop NG,
it cannot use Followup-To: spamcop in other spamcop.* NGs.

That's wrong.  Such a "conforming" UA would be broken for a
trivial practical task, by an arbitrary restriction.

Of course I prefer a structure with NGs at the leaves of a
tree, just beause that's as it always was.  But if it also 
works with NGs at the nodes, and obviously that's the case,
why try to forbid it on a _syntactical_ level ?

And if I had to choose between "Usenet" vs. GMaNe for some
strange reason I'd pick GMaNe.  I want standards allowing
UA, server, and gateway implementors to get it right.  Bye.

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 16 Jun 2005 23:26:33 +0200

> UA, server, and gateway implementors to get it right.  Bye.

You seem to be making a convincing argument that the single-component 
restriction should be pushed all the way over to USEAGE.....

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 11:26:08 GMT

>and need for a solid protocol as the public use of the Usenet article

The standard is meant to apply to both. But there is no reason why it
should not make more stringent rules for the publicly available Usenet
than for private use.

So you could quite well say that "single-component newsgroups" (and maybe
various other things) MUST NOT appear {on the public Usenet} except in
prior agreement in cooperating subnets.

>This cooperating subnet nonsense really has to go.

No, I agree with Henry on this one.

>If you want to limit USEAGE to just the public Usenet, ...

Again, USEAGE applies to both, but it may be useful to distinguish Best
Practice on Usenet from what might be acceptable elsewhere.

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 11:19:28 GMT

>in enough detail to make sure we understand it).

OK, I think we can satisfy both viewpoints with a little care. But first
some terminology:

Son-of-1036 (and also our earlier drafts) defined the term "cooperating
subnet", which is envisioned as a complete bunch of injectors, relayers,
servers and the lot. So a "private arrangement" just between a serving
agent and its community of clients hardly amounts to a "cooperating
subnet". I.e. "cooperating subnets" is a subset of "private arrangements".

So you say that "[some list of things, such as control.*, junk,
single-component names and components starting with "+" or "-"] are
reserved for private use (for example read-only newsgroups, made available
by a serving agent to those reading agents which it serves)."

>Relaying agents within or outside the private-agreement area?

And then you say "hence [same list of things] MUST NOT appear in
Newsgroups and Followup-To headers (except in cooperating subnets), though
they MAY appear in Xref headers".

Exactly which of the forbidden things are included in that list is a
separate discussion.

See also separate discussion between Russ and Henry as to whether
"cooperating subnets" are a useful concept to mention. I agree with Henry
on this one.

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 09:41:19 -0700

> should not make more stringent rules for the publicly available Usenet

You keep using this word "private."  I do not think this word means what
you think it means.

People use the same software and the same protocol for both world-wide
public groups, regionally limited groups, groups hosted by a single
server, or groups internal to (often large) organizations or ISPs.  The
protocol description should be the same for all of them, since it is the
same protocol and the same interoperability concerns apply.  If you want
to draw distinctions about best practices, that's what USEAGE is for.

---

From: Henry Spencer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 12:50:48 -0400 (EDT)

On Fri, 17 Jun 2005, Russ Allbery wrote:
> protocol description should be the same for all of them...

Except that it *can't* be, because practices which we *cannot* endorse as
the worldwide standard are common in some of those cooperating subnets --
for example, the "just send eight" approach to greater-than-ASCII
character sets is widespread in non-English monolingual subnets, but any
standard which aims at full interoperability has to be more cautious.

("Just send eight" is common in email, too, but RFC 2822 explicitly
repudiates it.)

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       [email-masked]

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 10:39:17 -0700

> Except that it *can't* be, because practices which we *cannot* endorse
> as the worldwide standard are common in some of those cooperating
> subnets -- for example, the "just send eight" approach to
> greater-than-ASCII character sets is widespread in non-English
> monolingual subnets, but any standard which aims at full
> interoperability has to be more cautious.

"Just send eight" is common in world-wide newsgroups just as much as it is
in more limited hierarchies.  That issue is not related to cooperating
subnets and the concept of cooperating subnets is not particularly helpful
in resolving or working around it.

Do you have any other examples of places where you feel this concept is
useful?

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jun 2005 19:49:47 +0200

Charles Lindsey wrote:

> See also separate discussion between Russ and Henry as to
> whether "cooperating subnets" are a useful concept to
> mention.

Nowhere I've seen a concept "something like a path MUST have
at least two components", the only exception I know is 2821
with its "at least one dot rule", and the author suggested to
fix it in a future 2821bis for the rare cases like `host ai`
ai = 209.88.68.34

Essentially the same idea or problem as a newsgroup spamcop,
or any filesystem with interesting ideas about /dev/ etc.

And for a filesystem you wouldn't forbid files in the root
directory only to protect pseudo-subdirectories like /dev/.

                          Bye, Frank

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 10:23:17 GMT

>You keep using this word "private."  I do not think this word means what

I think it was Harald's term. If there is doubt about its meaning, then a
definition would be needed. There is a clear enough definition of
"cooperating subnet" in son-of-1036 and in our earlier drafts.

>to draw distinctions about best practices, that's what USEAGE is for.

Is there such a thing as a "regionally limited" group? I think you will
find some servers (supernews, I imagine) which carry the groups for every
known region. Anyway, I think Usenet = "world-wide public groups including
regional groups of every sort". They should be obeying all the rules
(including no single-component names).

Whether single server groups are part of Usenet is debateable. If they are
publicly available, then they will surely "leak" sooner of later (as
Micrsoft discovered). For that reason, I think the single-component
"spamcop" is regrettable.

But groups internal to a large organization, or only available by
subscription (or other contractual arrangements, such as Usenet2) are
definitely "private" or "cooperating subnets", and so they may have
single-component names if they want. At any rate, that seems to be the
current practice, more or less.

I suspect that, as regards acceptance by injecting agents and propagation,
the standard should say "SHOULD NOT" rather than "MUST NOT" (though I
would leave it as MUST NOT for newgroup messages). But it should still be
accompanied by wording to indicate that exceptions to the SHGOULD are
really only for private/cooperating use.

I just proposed such a wording in reply to Harald. s/MUST NOT/SHOULD NOT/
in that wording.

And whatever wording is used for single-component names should be
applicable also to some of the other cases under discussion (e.g. "+" and
"-" components).

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2005 08:21:08 -0700

Charles Lindsey <[email-masked]> writes:

> Is there such a thing as a "regionally limited" group?

Yes.

> I think you will find some servers (supernews, I imagine) which carry
> the groups for every known region.

And you would be wrong.  But really, it hardly matters; the success of
private peering arrangements in keeping certain regional hierarchies
regional is really entirely beside the point that we're discussing.

> I suspect that, as regards acceptance by injecting agents and
> propagation, the standard should say "SHOULD NOT" rather than "MUST NOT"
> (though I would leave it as MUST NOT for newgroup messages). But it
> should still be accompanied by wording to indicate that exceptions to
> the SHGOULD are really only for private/cooperating use.

> applicable also to some of the other cases under discussion (e.g. "+"
> and "-" components).

This is all utter nonsense.  Drawing these arbitrary distinctions defeats
the entire point of writing a standard, namely enabling interoperable
software.  The software used for so-called "private" hierarchies is no
different than the software used for any other "public" hierarchy, and
saying that they have different requirements is like saying that certain
headers "SHOULD NOT" be used in a mail message when it's sent outside of
one's local organization.  It's an absurd rule; mail software has to be
able to deal with mail from any source, archives of mail messages have to
be portable and parsable, and mail software has no way of knowing whether
such an arbitrary distinction applies to a particular message.  Usenet is
no different.

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 10:51:58 GMT

>software.

Current practice seems to be to reject single-component names (and various
other such things), certainly in newgroup messages and maybe in injectors
as well (you already told us INN does some of that).

So, in any regionally limited hierarchy, or other private or cooperating
setup, the sofware is going to have to be modified to suit (a pretty easy
hack, I imagine).

So it we say that certain newsgroup-names SHOULD NOT be used in Usenet (or
outside of cooperating subnets, or however else we choose to say it), then
surely we are just documenting existing practice.

BTW, I am now persuaded that it is SHOULD NOT rather than MUST NOT for
these cases (since no interoperability problem arises).

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 14:29:05 +0200

> "cooperating subnet" in son-of-1036 and in our earlier drafts.

RFC 2434, guidelines for writing IANA sections:

      Private Use - For private or local use only, with the type and
           purpose defined by the local site. No attempt is made to
           prevent multiple sites from using the same value in different
           (and incompatible) ways. There is no need for IANA to review
           such assignments and assignments are not generally useful for
           interoperability.

           Examples: Site-specific options in DHCP [DHCP] have
           significance only within a single site.  "X-foo:" header
           lines in email messages.

RFC 2045 section 5.1, MIME content-type:

    (1)   Private values (starting with "X-") may be defined
          bilaterally between two cooperating agents without
          outside registration or standardization. Such values
          cannot be registered or standardized.

The essential point of "private" (and the one that has transfer value to 
this discussion) is "IETF does not try to make rules about what you do".
I think.

              Harald

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 06:59:46 -0700

Charles Lindsey <[email-masked]> writes:

> Current practice seems to be to reject single-component names (and
> various other such things), certainly in newgroup messages and maybe in
> injectors as well (you already told us INN does some of that).

INN only doesn't honor them in control messages in its default
configuration; it has no problem with them in all other contexts.  And, of
course, it creates two single-component names by default (junk and
control), which are then valid in Newsgroups, etc.

That's only one news server, and I think other servers are far less
conservative about things like that.

The INN control message policy is *explicitly* a matter of policy and is
intended to be a USEAGE-equivalent sort of configuration.  In other words,
it's *not* part of the protocol; it's part of what the local administrator
can configure as part of their personal preferences.

> setup, the sofware is going to have to be modified to suit (a pretty
> easy hack, I imagine).

If they create the groups by applying a checkgroups, there is no problem
creating the single-component group.  If they create a single group via
ctlinnd, there is no problem creating the single-component group.  No
software modifications are needed.  Both of those methods are common.

> So it we say that certain newsgroup-names SHOULD NOT be used in Usenet
> (or outside of cooperating subnets, or however else we choose to say
> it), then surely we are just documenting existing practice.

No.  We're not.

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 22 Jun 2005 20:58:06 GMT

>           such assignments and assignments are not generally useful for

Hmmm! I think that sort of definition is too restrictive for the kind of
useage we envisage, where mutual agreement between several sites may be
involved.

Indeed, I think "mutual agreement" to do something different out of the
ordinary is the term that we want.

Anyway, here is a proposed text, based on what Harald originally wrote,
and some of the comments that have been made since:

 
  A newsgroup <component> SHOULD NOT consist of digits only (because of
  bad interactions with a widely deployed storage technique), and SHOULD
  NOT contain uppercase letters (because some existing agents treat them
  case insensitievly). Such <component>s MAY be used to refer to existing
  groups created prior to this standard.

   <component>s beginning with underline ("_") are reserved for use by future
   versions of this standard and MUST NOT be generated by posting agents, nor
   accepted by injecting agents.  However, such names MUST be accepted by
   other agents.

   <newsgroup-name>s of the following forms MUST NOT be used:
   o any <newsgroup-name> containing the <component> "ctl" (because it
     formerly caused such articles to be interpreted as control
     messages);
   o any <newsgroup-name> containing the <component> "all" (because it
     is used as a wildcard in some implementations);
   o any <newsgroup-name> starting with the <component> "to" (because of
     its special meaning to route certain control messages on a
     point-to-point basis [USEPRO], for which specific purpose it MAY
     continue to be used);
   o the <newsgroup-name> "poster" (because of its special meaning in the
     Followup-To header).

   <newsgroup-name>s of the following forms SHOULD NOT appear in
   Newsgroups and Followup-To headers in articles intended for
   propagation throughout the public Usenet. They MAY appear in Xref
   headers and they MAY appear in articles passed between agents where
   there is some mutual agreement to do so.
   o any <newsgroup-name> having only one <component>;
   o any <newsgroup-name> starting with the <component> "control"
     (used by many serving agents for pseudo-newgroups to hold control
     messages);
   o the <newsgroup-name> "junk" (used by many serving agents to store
     invalid articles);
   o any <newsgroup-name> starting with the <component> "example"
    (reserved for examples in this and other standards);
   o any <newsgroup-name> containing <component>s beginning with "+" or
     "-" (reserved for special-purpose newsgroups, e.g. read-only
     groups, not to be propagated except by mutual agreement).

Now I can see several objections to this, so there is still much to
discuss.

1. I have followed the argument, put forward by several people, that we
should have a "one-stop-shop" for all rules restricting newsgroup-names;
hence this all goes in USEFOR.

2. Russ will take issue with my inclusion of "To" alongside "ctl" and
"all".

3. Russ will also take issue with the whole of that last paragraph. So
discussion of exact wording is in order (e.g. is "SHOULD NOT" the right
thing to say).

4. There is room for discussion of whether the various categories are in
the right list, and whether they are described correctly.

5. And when all that is settled. there will need to be some wording in
USEPRO as regards what MUST/SHOULD not appear in control messages and what
MUST/SHOULD be enforced by injecting agents.

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 02:02:19 +0200

Charles Lindsey wrote:

> <newsgroup-name>s of the following forms SHOULD NOT appear
> in Newsgroups and Followup-To headers in articles intended
> for propagation throughout the public Usenet.
[...]
> any <newsgroup-name> having only one <component>

As stated I disagree.  Except from some random junk like "fi"
or "free" there are apparently valid NGs "alt" and "general"
on news.clara.net (checked today, only for non-empty groups).

                   Bye, Frank

---

From: Henry Spencer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 11:02:48 -0400 (EDT)

On Fri, 17 Jun 2005, Russ Allbery wrote:
> > subnets -- for example, the "just send eight" approach...
> 

Sure it is.  A cooperating subnet can establish a standard convention on
just which 8-bit character set is in use.  No such convention is possible
in a worldwide standard; some form of character-set identifier in the
article is essential.

                                                          Henry Spencer
                                                       [email-masked]

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 08:18:36 -0700

>> "Just send eight" is common in world-wide newsgroups just as much as it
>> is in more limited hierarchies.  That issue is not related to
>> cooperating subnets and the concept of cooperating subnets is not
>> particularly helpful in resolving or working around it.

> just which 8-bit character set is in use.  No such convention is
> possible in a worldwide standard; some form of character-set identifier
> in the article is essential.

Establishing such a convention is exactly how just-send-eight is being
handled in world-wide newsgroups right now, and it works about as well in
practice as I'd expect it to work with a cooperating subnet.  I really
don't see the difference.  In both cases, you encounter exactly the same
problems with having to custom-configure otherwise general software.

See the character set guessing code in Gnus, which maps unknown character
sets to different local character sets based on the newsgroup hierarchy.
This is exactly the same as what would be needed for a cooperating subnet;
the benefits and problems are pretty much exactly identical.

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 23 Jun 2005 16:19:02 GMT

>on news.clara.net (checked today, only for non-empty groups).

Has the alt group reached article number 2600 yet?

Yes for sure servers do contain "random junk" and I doubt clara.net is the
worst by any means.

As to whether the group "general" remains a part of Usenet is debateable.
If there is content in it, do the Paths indicate wide propagation? If so,
it would be interesting to look at some other servers and see if they have
essentially the same set of articles.

But, "general" apart, I think current practice on Usenet is that
single-component groups are not supposed to be there, and my wording was
intended to reflect that. But, as I said, my wording is up for debate.

And perhaps clara.net has a "mutual agreement" with a limited set of peers
to carry some "unusual" groups :-) .

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 00:32:13 +0200

> Has the alt group reached article number 2600 yet?

Found in <news:[email-masked]> :
Xref: mephistopheles.news.clara.net rec.arts.poems:468350 alt:152780

Looking closer I found not one (out of five, then I had
enough) article restricted to alt.  X-Posts as a side
effect of typos, comma instead of dot in an alt.all NG.

> As to whether the group "general" remains a part of

Maye, but not in an IETF standard, unless you have some
technical reasons.  Catching comma instead of dot typos
isn't very convincing.

| There are nearly 500 different newsgroups, with subjects
| ranging from UNIX internals to politics to hobbies
[...]
| There may be also groups found only at your site.  One
| group, called 'general', is fairly likely to exist.
[...]
| Newsgroup names have one or more parts separated by periods.

Quoth Tim O'Reilly 1992, chapter 7, Introduction to Usenet.

                         Bye, Frank

---

From: Graham Drabble <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 20:56:16 +0100

On 23 Jun 2005 "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]> wrote in
news:[email-masked]: 

> single-component groups are not supposed to be there, and my
> wording was intended to reflect that. But, as I said, my wording
> is up for debate. 

The more I think about this the less I'm convinced that we need to say 
anything as part of the standard (we might want to look at this again 
come USEAGE). Single component groups and groups with all numeric 
components can only harm servers that choose to carry them, if they 
simply turn up in a transited article or in a control message which is 
not actioned they aren't a problem. It can therefore be left up to each 
administrator to decide based on local policy whether to add these 
groups.

-- 
Graham Drabble
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~sjoh1646/

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 18:26:21 GMT

>administrator to decide based on local policy whether to add these 

What I said, in my suggested text, was that single-component groups, and a
few other things, SHOULD NOT be found on the global Usenet, though other
networks could do as they please "by mutual arrangement".

But I also said that "SHOULD" was perhaps too strong, and invited
discussion. I still think that we should say _something_, though saying it
all in USEAGE is certainly one possibility.

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 10:22:23 +0200

--On 27. juni 2005 20:56 +0100 Graham Drabble <[email-masked]> 
wrote:

> n 23 Jun 2005 "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]> wrote in

I think that's the consensus of the group at the moment:

It's not sensible for the article *format* standard to say anything about 
single component newsgroup names. They should be permitted in syntax.

We'll return to the topic with USEAGE (if we get that far).

                Harald

---

From: Harald Tveit Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 12:35:55 +0200

--On mandag, juni 27, 2005 20:56:16 +0100 Graham Drabble 
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> not actioned they aren't a problem.

I think the issue of all-numeric, mixed-case and "all" and "ctl" groups is 
that many people *can't* choose to carry them - their implementations will 
behave in unexpected ways if they try.

So it makes sense to not require everyone to be able to handle them in 
order to conform...

                    Harald

---

From: Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:15:50 -0400 (EDT)

> So it makes sense to not require everyone to be able to handle them in 

It has _always_ been the case that the choice of which groups to carry
is a local option, made on whatever basis (technical, financial,
political, religious, . . .) the local admin decides.  Even if the
syntax _permits_ such an article, all that means is that the server
shouldn't fall over when it sees it; it's allowed to drop it on the
floor for any or no reason.

So I don't see how any wording we put here _requires_ anybody to be
able to handle anything (except in the sense of "don't fall over if
you see it"--and I assure you, they WILL see it no matter what we
write).

Seth

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 20:29:24 GMT

>We'll return to the topic with USEAGE (if we get that far).

OK, I could take the single-component newsgroup-names to USEAGE, but it
seems that the intent of Harald's latest proposal is to leave the rest of
these "funny" newsgroup-names (control.*, junk.*, to.*,
all-digit-components, etc.) in USEFOR.  Is that understanding correct?