* [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15
@ 1996-03-27 5:11 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-27 6:13 ` Steven L. Baur
` (2 more replies)
0 siblings, 3 replies; 10+ messages in thread
From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 1996-03-27 5:11 UTC (permalink / raw)
*sob*
Gnus didn't pass. So I think I'll have to make Gnus a bit stricter.
--
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen
------- Start of forwarded message -------
From: gdr11@cl.cam.ac.uk (Gareth Rees)
Newsgroups: news.software.readers
Subject: GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15
Date: 25 Mar 1996 18:57:59 +0000
Organization: Garbanzo Creative Media
Message-ID: <yxs68btyp8o.fsf@stint.cl.cam.ac.uk>
This is an evaluation of the newsreader Gnus 5.0.15 according to Ron
Newman's "Good Netkeeping Seal of Approval" (GNKSA).
Gnus 5.0.15 (hereafter "Gnus") is a newreader written by Lars Magne
Ingebrigtsen in Emacs LISP for the GNU Emacs editor. A slightly earlier
version, Gnus 5.0.13, is distributed with GNU Emacs 19. A new version
of Gnus ("September Gnus") is in development.
For more information, see the following references.
* Gnus: <http://www.ifi.uio.no/~larsi/ding.html>
* Good Netkeeping Seal of Approval:
<http://www.cybercom.net/~rnewman/Good_Netkeeping_Seal>
* Other GNKSA evaluations:
<http://http.bsd.uchicago.edu/~t-pierce/news/index.html>
Gnus fails the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for the following
reasons.
* You can post an article with an empty "Subject" header.
* You can post an article with a "From" header containing a
syntactically invalid e-mail address.
Note that, in both cases, Gnus recognises that the header is incorrect,
and it asks whether you really mean to post the article. But if you
answer "yes" then the article is posted anyway. It is not clear to me
whether the GNKSA means that the news posting agent should prevent
posting of *all* article with incorrect headers, or merely prevent
*accidental* posting of such articles. If the latter, then Gnus
certainly passes the GNKSA. However, I think that posting such articles
should be made more difficult than just answering "yes" to a prompt.
Perhaps the readers of this evaluation can comment further on this
issue?
The full evaluation follows.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Item number in GNKSA document Sub-item passes test?
| Item is required to pass the GNKSA? | Item passes?
| | Description of item | | Notes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Y Display all essential header info YES
Y default is to display YES
Y a) display author YES
Y b) display subject YES
Y c) display newsgroups list YES
Y d) display Followup-To list YES
Y e) display Reply-To if different from From YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
2 Y Provide standard commands YES
Y clear YES
Y separate YES
Y a) post a new article YES
Y b) post a followup article YES
Y c) reply by email YES
N use standard terminology YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
3 Y Implement cross-posting YES
Y allow user specification YES
Y cross-post (not multi-post) YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
4 Y Change essential headers YES
Y change headers while editing body YES
Y change Subject YES
Y allow at least 70 chars in subject YES
Y change Newsgroups YES
Y change Followup-To YES (1)
Y allow Followup-To: poster YES
Y change Reply-To YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
5 Y Correct Subject headers in followup/reply YES
Y a) prepend "Re: " (exactly!) YES
Y b) preserve entire Subject YES
Y even subjects longer than 80 characters YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
6 Y Respect Followup-To YES
Y use to initialize Newsgroups in followup YES
Y recognize and act on Followup-To: poster YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
7 Y Followups contain References
Y contains Message-ID of original YES
Y never truncate individual Message-ID YES
N contains three References of original YES
N contains entire References of original YES
N contains any message-id mentioned in body YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
8 Y Direct email reply to Reply-To YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
9 Y Quotation and attribution YES
Y provide method YES
Y set off by prepend YES
Y attribution line YES
Y identifies author YES
N gives message-id YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 Y Subject is mandatory NO
Y do not post empty Subject or "<none>" NO (2)
Y allow change while editing body YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
11 Y Must provide valid From header NO
Y syntactically valid NO (3)
N belongs to the user NO
------------------------------------------------------------------------
12 Y Must provide cancel YES
Y of own articles YES
Y *not* of others YES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
13 N Respect line length, and post WYSIWYG YES
N line breaks shown are present when posted YES
N do *not* post paragraph without line breaks YES
N warn if body has lines longer than 80 chars YES
N external editor (if any) conforms N/A (4)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
14 N Prevent obvious errors NO
N prevent posting empty article NO (5)
N prevent posting only quoted text NO (5)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
(1) It is possible to configure Gnus so that it prompts you whenever you
are following up an article that has been cross-posted, and so that
it prompts you whenever the Followup-To header is different from the
Newsgroups header. These options provide a useful defence against
maliciously or accidentally inappropriate Newsgroups and Followup-To
headers.
(2) Gnus allows you to post an article with an empty "Subject" header.
Gnus does recognise when the "Subject" header is empty and asks
whether you really mean to post it, but if you answer "yes" then the
article is posted anyway.
(3) Gnus allows you to post an article with a "From" header containing a
syntactically invalid e-mail address. Gnus does recognise when the
"From" header is bogus and asks whether you really mean to post it,
but if you answer "yes" then the article is posted anyway.
(4) Gnus uses the editing facilities of Emacs, so has no external
editor.
(5) The documentation says that these errors should be tested for and
detected, but they aren't. Presumably this is a bug that will be
fixed in later releases.
--
Gareth Rees
------- End of forwarded message -------
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15
1996-03-27 5:11 [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
@ 1996-03-27 6:13 ` Steven L. Baur
1996-03-27 6:14 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-27 7:18 ` d. hall
1996-03-27 23:56 ` Russ Allbery
2 siblings, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread
From: Steven L. Baur @ 1996-03-27 6:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:
>
> *sob*
>
> Gnus didn't pass. So I think I'll have to make Gnus a bit stricter.
...
> Gnus fails the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for the following
> reasons.
>
> * You can post an article with an empty "Subject" header.
This is a feature. There are braindamaged installations of listserv
or listproc that get very confused and spit garbage back at you if you
put in a subject.
--
steve@miranova.com baur
Unsolicited commercial e-mail will be proofread for $250/hour.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15
1996-03-27 6:13 ` Steven L. Baur
@ 1996-03-27 6:14 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
0 siblings, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread
From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 1996-03-27 6:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
"Steven L. Baur" <steve@miranova.com> writes:
> > Gnus fails the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval for the following
> > reasons.
> >
> > * You can post an article with an empty "Subject" header.
>
> This is a feature. There are braindamaged installations of listserv
> or listproc that get very confused and spit garbage back at you if you
> put in a subject.
This checking is done only when sending news, not mail.
--
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15
1996-03-27 5:11 [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-27 6:13 ` Steven L. Baur
@ 1996-03-27 7:18 ` d. hall
1996-03-28 4:57 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-27 23:56 ` Russ Allbery
2 siblings, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread
From: d. hall @ 1996-03-27 7:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
Cc: ding
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
// thus on 27 Mar 1996 05:11:55 +0000, Lars virtually wrote:
Lars> *sob* Gnus didn't pass. So I think I'll have to make Gnus a bit
Lars> stricter.
IMHO Gnus should incorporate the ``strict subject'' and newsgroups check in
force only if gnus-interactive-post is set to non-nil. Or else do we have
to remove it totally from the gnus-check-before-posting alist in order to
remove this big brother influence?
d.
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--
``And isn't it ironic... don't you think
A little too ironic... and yeah I really do think...''
~ alanis morissette, ironic
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15
1996-03-27 7:18 ` d. hall
@ 1996-03-28 4:57 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
0 siblings, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread
From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 1996-03-28 4:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
dhall@illusion.apk.net (d. hall) writes:
> IMHO Gnus should incorporate the ``strict subject'' and newsgroups check in
> force only if gnus-interactive-post is set to non-nil. Or else do we have
> to remove it totally from the gnus-check-before-posting alist in order to
> remove this big brother influence?
`gnus-check-before-posting' is obsolete now, of course.
`message-syntax-checks' is eerily similar, though.
`gnus-interactive-post' is also obsolete.
But yes, if you don't like Big Sister checking your posts for you, you
must fiddle with `message-syntax-checks'.
--
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15
1996-03-27 5:11 [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-27 6:13 ` Steven L. Baur
1996-03-27 7:18 ` d. hall
@ 1996-03-27 23:56 ` Russ Allbery
1996-03-28 4:59 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
2 siblings, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread
From: Russ Allbery @ 1996-03-27 23:56 UTC (permalink / raw)
A request: Please do not require that the From: line is verifiably the
user's mail address. Not only does that cause all sorts of problems with
strange e-mail setups, but I use Gnus to simulate three different accounts
with one account (for mail splitting purposes) and I'd really hate to lose
the ability to do that.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@cs.stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15
1996-03-27 23:56 ` Russ Allbery
@ 1996-03-28 4:59 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-28 6:33 ` Russ Allbery
0 siblings, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread
From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 1996-03-28 4:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
Russ Allbery <eagle@cyclone.Stanford.EDU> writes:
> A request: Please do not require that the From: line is verifiably the
> user's mail address.
No, that's impossible. What Gnus does require now is that the From
line is valid syntactically.
From: (whohee-
is illegal, as is
From: larsi@.ifi.uio.no
And so on.
Gnus will not complain on
From: god@heaven.org
but it will (silently) add a Sender header that contains what Gnus
believes to be a more correct address.
--
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15
1996-03-28 4:59 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
@ 1996-03-28 6:33 ` Russ Allbery
1996-03-28 6:48 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-28 8:48 ` Gareth Rees
0 siblings, 2 replies; 10+ messages in thread
From: Russ Allbery @ 1996-03-28 6:33 UTC (permalink / raw)
Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@ifi.uio.no> writes:
> Russ Allbery <eagle@cyclone.Stanford.EDU> writes:
>> A request: Please do not require that the From: line is verifiably the
>> user's mail address.
> No, that's impossible. What Gnus does require now is that the From
> line is valid syntactically.
That's cool. The reason why I brought it up is that I believe it's one of
the questions in the GNKSA test.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@cs.stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15
1996-03-28 6:33 ` Russ Allbery
@ 1996-03-28 6:48 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-28 8:48 ` Gareth Rees
1 sibling, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread
From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 1996-03-28 6:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
Russ Allbery <eagle@cyclone.Stanford.EDU> writes:
> >> A request: Please do not require that the From: line is verifiably the
> >> user's mail address.
>
> > No, that's impossible. What Gnus does require now is that the From
> > line is valid syntactically.
>
> That's cool. The reason why I brought it up is that I believe it's one of
> the questions in the GNKSA test.
It is, but failing to verify the From line isn't a "flunking" item.
--
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
larsi@ifi.uio.no * Lars Ingebrigtsen
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15
1996-03-28 6:33 ` Russ Allbery
1996-03-28 6:48 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
@ 1996-03-28 8:48 ` Gareth Rees
1 sibling, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread
From: Gareth Rees @ 1996-03-28 8:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
Russ Allbery <rra@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> I believe [that the requirement that the From: line is verifiably the
> user's mail address is] one of the questions in the GNKSA test.
It is, but it is not a requirement to pass the test, because no
newsreader on any popular operating system can hope to get it right.
Obviously, one aspect of getting it right would be to know when a user
has several mail addresses.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~1996-03-28 8:48 UTC | newest]
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-- links below jump to the message on this page --
1996-03-27 5:11 [news.software.readers] GNKSA: Gnus 5.0.15 Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-27 6:13 ` Steven L. Baur
1996-03-27 6:14 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-27 7:18 ` d. hall
1996-03-28 4:57 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-27 23:56 ` Russ Allbery
1996-03-28 4:59 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-28 6:33 ` Russ Allbery
1996-03-28 6:48 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1996-03-28 8:48 ` Gareth Rees
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