Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: IMPORTANT: Users of Rodney's UUCP modules / GUS
Message-ID: <1991May14.230839.10733@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Tue, 14 May 1991 23:08:39 GMT
References: <1991May13.172233.5581@zoo.toronto.edu> <DByX213w164w@mantis.co.uk>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <DByX213w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes:
>> ... C News generates four-digit years everywhere and accepts
>> them everywhere.
>
>Dearie me!  RFC1036 says that the format MUST be acceptable to RFC822. And
>RFC822 says [two-digit years]

RFC1123 amends RFC822 to allow, and indeed strongly encourage, four digits.
You have no business reading *any* of the major RFCs these days without
first consulting 1122 and 1123.

>... C News should not
>discard an article unless it is unable to correct the header

How do you "correct" a header?  You can attempt to repair it, but you're
as likely to get it wrong as right.  We've seen too much chaos caused by
well-intentioned attempts to "correct" headers; we refuse to participate.

>and if it does
>discard an article, it should at least attempt to warn the poster.

How?  Every scheme we could think of has flaws you could drive a truck
through -- either it doesn't work (you think you can reliably get mail
to him based on news headers?) or it doesn't scale (being notified of your
typo by hundreds of sites gets old fast, and can be real-$ expensive).
It is not safe for a remote site to make *any* attempt to notify a poster,
even if can reliably do so; there is too much potential for more-or-less
innocent victims to be inundated with mail and (to add injury to insult)
have to pay for its transmission.

>   Date: Mon 11 Mar 1991 00:32 GMT
>Now, why exactly did C News throw the articles away?  Was it because there's
>a comma missing after the day name?

Yes.

>>                  (People never seem to bother reading the specs before they
>> devise their own whacko date format.)
>Pot. Kettle. Bang.

No potheads :-) here.  *We* read the RFCs, including 1123.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry
