Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!mp.cs.niu.edu!rickert
From: rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: C-news rejects articles due to bad headers.
Message-ID: <1991May3.185024.26725@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Date: 3 May 91 18:50:24 GMT
References: <1991May3.173007.21900@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Organization: Northern Illinois University
Lines: 74


 Enclosed are excerpts from article headers that were rejected yesterday.  They
were all forwarded to me by one of my feeds, which has itself disabled the
Cnews rejection so it can see what is happening.

 I receive only a very limited feed (mostly comp and news).  Yesterday there
were 9 such articles.  Of these, 7 were subsequently received from my other
feed, having presumably been appropriately munged along the way.

 For each article, I include only the 'From:' and 'Message-ID:' headers,
together with all invalid headers.

 The problem headers are either: Empty headers with no trailing blank.
				 'References:' with no blank after ':'
				 In one case a user entered 'Sender:'

 The most common problem seems to be with the 'References:' header.

It seems apparent that problems are occurring mostly with empty headers,
or headers which were probably edited by humans.  The machine generated
headers are mostly correct.  Clearly news posting software needs to be
more careful to guard against these kinds of easy mistakes.  (I agree with
Henry and Geoff, though, that correcting entry mistakes is not the
responsibility of the transport).

	From: dlarson@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dale Larson)
	Message-ID: <21154@cbmvax.commodore.com>
	Summary:
	Expires:
	Sender:
	Followup-To:
	Distribution:

	From: phillip@BARTAL.COM (Phillip M. Vogel)
	Message-ID: <451@bartal.BARTAL.COM>
	References:

	From: us264465@mmm.serc.3m.com (Rich A. Nazarian)
	Message-ID: <1991May2.124144.4686@mmm.serc.3m.com>
	Sender:Rich Nazarian

	From: jln@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Norstad)
	Message-ID: <1991May2.151351.14748@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>
	References:<1991Apr30.121736.10695@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1991Apr30.172718.11744@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> <1991May1.153943.5808@engin.umich.edu> <1991May1.161827.23293@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <1991May1.215732.11589@engin.umich.edu>

	From: jln@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John Norstad)
	Message-ID: <1991May2.153326.15711@casbah.acns.nwu.edu>
	References:<1991May1.161827.23293@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <13275@goofy.Apple.COM>

	From: kcv0@bunny.gte.com (Kurt  Van Schalkwijk)
	Message-ID: <11122@bunny.GTE.COM>
	References:<1991Apr29.150159.12586@wam.umd.edu> <1991Apr30.150818.6304@ccad.uiowa.edu> <1991May1.045558.29716@leland.Stanford.EDU>

	From: william@kaula.keck.hawaii.edu (William Lupton)
	Message-ID: <12802@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
	Expires:
	References:
	Sender:
	Followup-To:
	Keywords:

	From: robt@mummy.agsm.unsw.oz.au (Rob Trevor)
	Message-ID: <1406@usage.csd.unsw.oz.au>
	References:<1991Apr26.060223.9904@fs7.ece.cmu.edu>        <1991Apr26.194705.4975@unx2.ucc.okstate.edu> <WVENABLE.91Apr29002559@spam.ua.oz.au>

	From: drg@mdaali.mda.uth.tmc.edu (David Gutierrez)
	Message-ID: <5026@lib.tmc.edu>
	References:<233@hermix.UUCP> <22556@natinst.natinst.com>

-- 
=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=
  Neil W. Rickert, Computer Science               <rickert@cs.niu.edu>
  Northern Illinois Univ.
  DeKalb, IL 60115                                   +1-815-753-6940