* Re: [John Moreno <phenix@interpath.com>] Re: GNKSA and Gnus
@ 1998-01-04 22:04 John Moreno
1998-01-08 9:14 ` Russ Allbery
0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: John Moreno @ 1998-01-04 22:04 UTC (permalink / raw)
Cc: Russ Allbery, ding, Karl-Johan Noren
Kai Grossjohann wrote:
>>>>> On Sun, 4 Jan 98, John Moreno said:
>
> John> It is a attempt to have software FACILITATE using the correct
> John> etiquette. It means that software should provide a method
>
>I can see the advantage of having the option of marking a part of a
>message then hitting the reply button then the user agent inserting
>only that part as quoted text. Rather than the user always getting
>everything at first and then having to cut away the rest.
>
>While this might be useful, I think it is not an important feature.
It's considered important only in the sense of having features that
encourage the user to do the right thing - it is NOT a requirement for
getting the GNKSA.
All of the 'Soft' requirement are features which while considered very
good and useful and guides the user into correct behavior, may not be
appropriate for all users or newsreaders. For instance if most of your
time on the net was spent in alt.fan.warlord this wouldn't be a very good
feature for you.
--
John Moreno
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: GNKSA and Gnus
1998-01-04 22:04 [John Moreno <phenix@interpath.com>] Re: GNKSA and Gnus John Moreno
@ 1998-01-08 9:14 ` Russ Allbery
0 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Russ Allbery @ 1998-01-08 9:14 UTC (permalink / raw)
Cc: ding
John Moreno <phenix@interpath.com> writes:
> All of the 'Soft' requirement are features which while considered very
> good and useful and guides the user into correct behavior, may not be
> appropriate for all users or newsreaders. For instance if most of your
> time on the net was spent in alt.fan.warlord this wouldn't be a very
> good feature for you.
I've been thinking this over, and I believe the reason why I was objecting
to this before was largely due to a misconception of the point of Soft
features. It's one that would seem to be cleared up by adding another
level; there are many Soft features that I would consider to be
appropriate in all circumstances, and then there are many that I think
should be decidedly optional and which some newsreaders would have no
interest whatsoever in implementing (for legitimate reasons).
Making that division more apparent may be helpful.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: GNKSA and Gnus
@ 1998-01-05 21:22 John Moreno
1998-01-05 22:02 ` Lars Balker Rasmussen
0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: John Moreno @ 1998-01-05 21:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
Cc: Karl-Johan Noren
Russ Allbery wrote:
>Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:
>
>> I often have to manually edit the references line when posting followups
>> in gnu.misc.discuss in order to make INN accept it. I guess it happens
>> in gnu.misc.discuss because
>
>> 1) The threads there are very deep.
>> 2) There are a high fraction of Gnus users, thus none of the posters
>> software will restrict the header.
>
>I stand corrected.
>
>> ## Maximum size of a single header.
>> #### =()<MAXHEADERSIZE @<MAXHEADERSIZE>@>()=
>> MAXHEADERSIZE 1024
>
>I believe this only affects headers which are not continued. If one uses
>continuation lines, headers can be much larger. (Or that at least is my
>understanding.) Keep in mind that the version of Gnus that I'm using
>still wraps References using continuation lines; I think Lars took that
>out at some point?
>
>It sounds like either the header wrapping code needs to be put back in or
>Gnus needs to shorten the Reference headers it generates, in the short
>term. In the long term, I expect the new news RFC to require References
>headers not be truncated.
It's going to have to either require or allow it to be truncated at some
point - otherwise you'll have references lines that grow infinitely long.
I know of several threads that are more than a year old - I hate to
think how long they would be if software didn't truncate the header.
Approximately 1k REALLY is the current expected behavior. And if
newsreaders don't do it, servers and users will. It is also a attempt to
make the standard larger than what might otherwise be settled upon -
after all assuming that all of the articles are there threading can take
place with just one, and if articles are missing keeping only 5 or 6 back
references is enough for normal situations. And I can't count the number
of users (most using TIN) who I've chided for deleting it entirely - I
end up telling them that since they feel they must cut it, to at least
leave in the last reference. Unfortunately I often get the reply that it
is simply easier to cut it all out than to try to edit it.
--
John Moreno
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: GNKSA and Gnus
1998-01-05 21:22 John Moreno
@ 1998-01-05 22:02 ` Lars Balker Rasmussen
0 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Lars Balker Rasmussen @ 1998-01-05 22:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
John Moreno <phenix@interpath.com> writes:
> It's going to have to either require or allow it to be truncated at some
> point - otherwise you'll have references lines that grow infinitely long.
> I know of several threads that are more than a year old - I hate to
> think how long they would be if software didn't truncate the header.
Good argument. However, it also shoots down the definition in
son-of-1036, where some IDs are sacred. In a year-long thread it's easy
to imagine the first, the latest and all IDs with _-_ in them to be more
than 1000 chars long. Then what ID should be cut?
--
Lars Balker Rasmussen, Software Engineer, Mjolner Informatics ApS
lbr@mjolner.dk
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
[parent not found: <199712280107.UAA02498@mail.interpath.net>]
* Re: GNKSA and Gnus
[not found] <199712280107.UAA02498@mail.interpath.net>
@ 1998-01-05 19:54 ` Per Abrahamsen
1998-01-05 20:31 ` Russ Allbery
1998-01-12 22:15 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
0 siblings, 2 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Per Abrahamsen @ 1998-01-05 19:54 UTC (permalink / raw)
Cc: John Moreno, Karl-Johan Noren
[ Lars: I'd be willing to work on 10d and 10e if you are interested. ]
The GNKSA requirements seem reasonable to me. Some of the SHOULD
doesn't really apply to Gnus because of special concerns, which I
suspect is why they are SHOULD and not MUST.
> 7c Does not restrict references sensibly
I often have to manually edit the references line when posting
followups in gnu.misc.discuss in order to make INN accept it. I guess
it happens in gnu.misc.discuss because
1) The threads there are very deep.
2) There are a high fraction of Gnus users, thus none of the posters
software will restrict the header.
This is with
nntp-server-type's value is
"200 ssv2.dina.kvl.dk InterNetNews NNRP server INN 1.5.1 17-Dec-1996 ready (posting ok).\n"
I found this in the config file.
## Maximum size of a single header.
#### =()<MAXHEADERSIZE @<MAXHEADERSIZE>@>()=
MAXHEADERSIZE 1024
I would feel more safe having Gnus truncate the header, than doing it myself.
> Additionally, the software violates the `soft' GNKSA requirements
> (SHOULDs) in the following way:
> 10d Does not omit (proper) signatures from quoted text
I think Gnus should do that. The default Gnus citation handler is too
barebone, probably in reaction too the alternative citation handler
(SuperCite) which is too advanced.
> 10e Does not let the user indicate which part to followup to
This is something Gravity does, and in general a good idea. It migth
make less sense for Gnus. However, I think it would be nice if
quoting would be restricted to the currently region in the messsage
being quoted, iff `transient-message-mode' is on, and the region is
active.
> 10g Attribution line lacks Message-ID of original article
This is the only point I disagree with. The message-id is in the
references line, which should be enough. I don't think therte is
anything resembling a consensus on whether it should be included in
the attribution line as well.
> 16b Does not refuse posting an empty article
> 16d Does not refuse to post quoted text only
> 16f Does not try to prevent posting multiple copies entirely
Actually, I believe I have gotten warnings for all three of these.
> The software sports the following nice net-keeping features unmentioned
> by the GNKSA:
Command to fetch FAQ for the group.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: GNKSA and Gnus
1998-01-05 19:54 ` Per Abrahamsen
@ 1998-01-05 20:31 ` Russ Allbery
1998-01-12 22:15 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1 sibling, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Russ Allbery @ 1998-01-05 20:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
Cc: John Moreno, Karl-Johan Noren
Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:
> I often have to manually edit the references line when posting followups
> in gnu.misc.discuss in order to make INN accept it. I guess it happens
> in gnu.misc.discuss because
> 1) The threads there are very deep.
> 2) There are a high fraction of Gnus users, thus none of the posters
> software will restrict the header.
I stand corrected.
> ## Maximum size of a single header.
> #### =()<MAXHEADERSIZE @<MAXHEADERSIZE>@>()=
> MAXHEADERSIZE 1024
I believe this only affects headers which are not continued. If one uses
continuation lines, headers can be much larger. (Or that at least is my
understanding.) Keep in mind that the version of Gnus that I'm using
still wraps References using continuation lines; I think Lars took that
out at some point?
It sounds like either the header wrapping code needs to be put back in or
Gnus needs to shorten the Reference headers it generates, in the short
term. In the long term, I expect the new news RFC to require References
headers not be truncated.
> This is something Gravity does, and in general a good idea. It migth
> make less sense for Gnus. However, I think it would be nice if quoting
> would be restricted to the currently region in the messsage being
> quoted, iff `transient-message-mode' is on, and the region is active.
I still don't think this idea makes any sense. But YMMV.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: GNKSA and Gnus
1998-01-05 19:54 ` Per Abrahamsen
1998-01-05 20:31 ` Russ Allbery
@ 1998-01-12 22:15 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1998-01-12 22:45 ` Russ Allbery
1998-01-12 22:48 ` Hrvoje Niksic
1 sibling, 2 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 1998-01-12 22:15 UTC (permalink / raw)
Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:
> [ Lars: I'd be willing to work on 10d and 10e if you are interested. ]
Sure.
> nntp-server-type's value is
> "200 ssv2.dina.kvl.dk InterNetNews NNRP server INN 1.5.1 17-Dec-1996 ready (posting ok).\n"
>
> I found this in the config file.
>
> ## Maximum size of a single header.
> #### =()<MAXHEADERSIZE @<MAXHEADERSIZE>@>()=
> MAXHEADERSIZE 1024
Hm. Is this the default? If so, I think Gnus should just go back to
folding the header.
> > 10d Does not omit (proper) signatures from quoted text
>
> I think Gnus should do that. The default Gnus citation handler is too
> barebone, probably in reaction too the alternative citation handler
> (SuperCite) which is too advanced.
Providing an alternative to `message-cite-original' that removes the
signature might be nice.
> > 10e Does not let the user indicate which part to followup to
>
> This is something Gravity does, and in general a good idea. It migth
> make less sense for Gnus. However, I think it would be nice if
> quoting would be restricted to the currently region in the messsage
> being quoted, iff `transient-message-mode' is on, and the region is
> active.
Hm. Perhaps, but I can't really see this being used much.
--
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: GNKSA and Gnus
1998-01-12 22:15 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
@ 1998-01-12 22:45 ` Russ Allbery
1998-02-02 18:25 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1998-01-12 22:48 ` Hrvoje Niksic
1 sibling, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Russ Allbery @ 1998-01-12 22:45 UTC (permalink / raw)
Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> Per Abrahamsen <abraham@dina.kvl.dk> writes:
>> I found this in the config file.
>> ## Maximum size of a single header.
>> #### =()<MAXHEADERSIZE @<MAXHEADERSIZE>@>()=
>> MAXHEADERSIZE 1024
> Hm. Is this the default? If so, I think Gnus should just go back to
> folding the header.
Yup, that's the default. And yes, that would be my preference as well.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: GNKSA and Gnus
1998-01-12 22:45 ` Russ Allbery
@ 1998-02-02 18:25 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
0 siblings, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen @ 1998-02-02 18:25 UTC (permalink / raw)
Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:
> > Hm. Is this the default? If so, I think Gnus should just go back to
> > folding the header.
>
> Yup, that's the default. And yes, that would be my preference as well.
I've now switched back again to folding.
--
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: GNKSA and Gnus
1998-01-12 22:15 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1998-01-12 22:45 ` Russ Allbery
@ 1998-01-12 22:48 ` Hrvoje Niksic
1 sibling, 0 replies; 12+ messages in thread
From: Hrvoje Niksic @ 1998-01-12 22:48 UTC (permalink / raw)
Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> Hm. Is this the default? If so, I think Gnus should just go back to
> folding the header.
Please do. Or, see my proposal in "References again" thread.
--
Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> | Student at FER Zagreb, Croatia
--------------------------------+--------------------------------
`VI' - An editor used by those heretics that don't subscribe to
the Emacs religion.
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: [John Moreno <phenix@interpath.com>] Re: GNKSA and Gnus
@ 1998-01-04 21:45 Russ Allbery
1998-01-04 22:27 ` John Moreno
0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: Russ Allbery @ 1998-01-04 21:45 UTC (permalink / raw)
Cc: phenix, Karl-Johan Noren
(Still cc'ing people who may or may not be on the mailing list.)
John Moreno <phenix@interpath.com> writes:
> 7c is a requirement that makes it compatible with son-of-1036,
This provision of son-of-1036 has been roundly rejected and dismissed as
horribly broken by the IETF working group forming the RFC 1036
replacement. It is in no way an applicable news standard. The current
inclination of that working group, by my reading of the conversation, is
to either require (as a MUST) that all news software handle References of
arbitrary size or set a cutoff in the 10KB+ range.
Furthermore, should Gnus comply with 7c, it would be in *violation* of
what's likely to become the new news standard, given that it will almost
certainly be recommended that References *never* be truncated if it can be
avoided.
> and is in there to acknowledge a problem with some SERVERS - i.e. ones
> that don't handle long lines.
Do you have some evidence of this being a problem in practice, rather than
theory? INN certainly has no such problem that I'm aware of, at least in
a relatively recent version. tin used to have a problem with large
overview files (larger than this extremely small limit -- about 4K as I
recall), but that bug has long since been fixed.
> Son-of-1036 specifies that it not be longer than 1000 octets including
> EOL (2 octets to allow for dos cr/lf),
Son-of-1036 is severely broken in this regard and should be ignored.
> Also note that this should allow any one message to have references
> going back between 30-40 messages.
Assuming airnews or Pine message IDs, about 15-20 is more accurate. But
threading becomes easier the fuller the References header is.
> This seems, well, not to harsh to me - and can easily result in messages
> where the references header is much larger than the message itself.
Yes, it can. But this is a meaningless optimization. One should never
optimize without profiling; if this were actually a source of concern for
news bandwidth, then sure, I can see making provisions concerning it.
Even a brief inspection of article size will show that it's not, however.
> I'm sorry to hear that - if you have fixed 16c then the only thing
> that's out of place is 7c and this can result in either the users server
> not accepting the article or other servers not propagating their
> messages.
I find this highly unlikely, but I'm willing to be convinced that I'm
wrong if you have some evidence to support this statement.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
* Re: [John Moreno <phenix@interpath.com>] Re: GNKSA and Gnus
@ 1998-01-04 22:27 ` John Moreno
1998-01-04 23:58 ` Matt Simmons
0 siblings, 1 reply; 12+ messages in thread
From: John Moreno @ 1998-01-04 22:27 UTC (permalink / raw)
Cc: Karl-Johan Noren
Russ Allbery wrote:
> John Moreno <phenix@interpath.com> writes:
>> Also note that this should allow any one message to have references
>> going back between 30-40 messages.
>
>Assuming airnews or Pine message IDs, about 15-20 is more accurate. But
>threading becomes easier the fuller the References header is.
True on both counts, but is 10-20 messages in between needing to resample
the header a excessively low number? I frequently see (although not as
frequently as messages with no refs) messages with only 1 item, which is
ALLOWED under 1036. I also know of several threads with plenty of
traffic which have been going on for months - the references header in
these messages if including every single message-id would be in the 10s
or 100s of k range. It's got to be snipped sometime, ~1k seems like a
good enough place to me.
>> I'm sorry to hear that - if you have fixed 16c then the only thing
>> that's out of place is 7c and this can result in either the users server
>> not accepting the article or other servers not propagating their
>> messages.
>
>I find this highly unlikely, but I'm willing to be convinced that I'm
>wrong if you have some evidence to support this statement.
I have anecdotal evidence only - I have talked to people who have had
their articles rejected from their servers for exactly this reason (long
headers) and upon examination it was the references header which was the
problem (and one case where it wasn't the references header it was
instead the fact that the last header field was missing a cr and so the
server thought part of the body was part of the header). I'll admit that
I don't have any evidence of servers not passing along messages because
of this. I'll also admit that upon testing it was possible to get the
messages posted even with the long header if the header was wrapped using
the "cr space" format.
--
John Moreno
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 12+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~1998-02-02 18:25 UTC | newest]
Thread overview: 12+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
1998-01-04 22:04 [John Moreno <phenix@interpath.com>] Re: GNKSA and Gnus John Moreno
1998-01-08 9:14 ` Russ Allbery
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
1998-01-05 21:22 John Moreno
1998-01-05 22:02 ` Lars Balker Rasmussen
[not found] <199712280107.UAA02498@mail.interpath.net>
1998-01-05 19:54 ` Per Abrahamsen
1998-01-05 20:31 ` Russ Allbery
1998-01-12 22:15 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1998-01-12 22:45 ` Russ Allbery
1998-02-02 18:25 ` Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen
1998-01-12 22:48 ` Hrvoje Niksic
1998-01-04 21:45 [John Moreno <phenix@interpath.com>] " Russ Allbery
1998-01-04 22:27 ` John Moreno
1998-01-04 23:58 ` Matt Simmons
1998-01-05 13:42 ` Robert Bihlmeyer
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for NNTP newsgroup(s).