Re: Last Call: draft-ietf-usefor-usepro (Netnews Architecture and Protocols) to Proposed Standard

SM <[email protected]> Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:33:40 -0700
Newsgroups gmane.ietf.general,gmane.ietf.usenet.format
Message-ID <[email protected]>
Hi Russ,

[I-D author requested Cc]

At 19:35 24-09-2008, Russ Allbery wrote:
>Well, I find that statement unobjectionable but essentially meaningless,
>in that I don't think the document says anything substantively different
>including that statement than without it.  But if it makes others feel
>more comfortable, I don't object to including it.

If you don't find that the addition changes anything, there is no 
point in including it.  The point was that the author address should 
be fixed if it's not according to the specifications for that 
medium.  I did not elaborate as the medium is not restricted to mail.

>That provision doesn't document what happens in practice, nor would it be
>possible to limit the header additions.  (For example, it's essentially
>impossible to send something as an e-mail message without adding Received
>headers.)  I prefer to give implementors a better idea of what to expect,
>and in practice arbitrary headers will get added by the transit through
>the mail system, including all sorts of X-* headers, trace headers, and
>random detritus from spam filters.

Okay.

>We could easily remove that specific header field name from the example
>and instead just say:
>
>     The news-to-mail gateway adds an X-* header field to all messages it
>     generates.  The mail-to-news gateway discards any incoming messages
>     containing this header field.
>
>Would that be an improvement?

Yes, that's better.

Regards,
-sm