Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!novavax!twwells!bill
From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: All these title lines!
Keywords: perplexed
Message-ID: <1989Jul30.223541.12561@twwells.com>
Date: 30 Jul 89 22:35:41 GMT
References: <14733@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Organization: None, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Lines: 85

In article <14733@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> jarvis@northstar.dartmouth.edu (Mark (Ninjabutler) Robinson) writes:
: Just one quick question:
:
: How can I fill in the empty titles 'Expires:', 'References:', 'Sender:', and
: 'Followup-To:', above, when I am posting to the net?

I presume that you are not asking about the mechanics of doing this;
I hope that you know your editor by now! (And that your posting
software makes those headers available for editing.) I'm assuming
that you are asking what you should put into those fields.

Here is a short summary of what they mean and what you can do with
them:

Expires:

	This field is a hint to each site as to how long the message
	ought to be kept. If blank, each site will use some default
	that will likely be related to how much disk space they have
	in order to decide how long they keep the message around.
	Well endowed sites will likely keep it around for two weeks,
	others will keep messages around for a shorter time (e.g.,
	three days on my system). However, some messages should be
	kept around longer. YOUR MESSAGE ISN'T ONE OF THEM! I'm not
	being obnoxious here; I'm pointing out that the chance is so
	slim that your message really ought to have a longer expiry
	date that we don't need to consider it. Generally, only
	messages in moderated newsgroups should get one of these and
	the moderator is the one who puts it in.

	However, since it would be rude not to tell, what goes in
	here is something that looks like what goes in the Date:
	field. What I do is run the Unix `date' command, edit the
	results to look like what I want, and paste it here.

References: <14733@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>

	This one contains the message id's of the messages that this
	one is a followup to. A message that starts a thread will have
	a blank References: line. Your news software will generally
	fill this in for you when you follow up to a message. On
	occasion, it is desirable to make one of these lines up, or
	to shorten one of them (as in when rn barfs over a long one);
	in that case, this line should contain a list of message id's
	separated by single spaces. You should include the message id
	of the first message of the thread in the list, as many of
	the messages in the middle as you can (opinion) with the
	latest messages preferred, and definitely the last message in
	the thread.

Sender:

	(Following is my understanding; I haven't used the field
	myself and so may have some of this wrong.) This field is
	used when you are sending a message on behalf of another.
	What it contains is the address of the person actually
	sending the message as opposed to who the message is from. So,
	if you are joe@turkey.gov and you are sending a message for
	john@turkey.gov, the From: line (which you would have to add
	yourself) would say `From: john@turkey.gov' and the Sender:
	line would say `Sender: joe@turkey.gov'. If I read my docs
	right, if you add your own From: line, the news posting
	software will put the right thing into the Sender: line for
	you.

Followup-To:

	This indicates where you want messages that are followups to
	your message to be posted. It should be a list of news groups
	like what goes on the Newsgroups: line. If this line would be
	the same as the Newsgroups: line, leave it blank.

	(opinion) You should use this line any time you cross-post.
	(opinion) You should only follow up to one newsgroup.

	Note that not all news software handles the Followup-To: line
	correctly. To help people who are stuck with that kind of
	software, should you put something in the Followup-To: line,
	you should also add at the beginning or end of your message a
	line saying something like: "Followups have been directed to
	<whatever you put in the Followup-To: line>".

---
Bill                    { uunet | novavax | ankh | sunvice } !twwells!bill
bill@twwells.com