Xref: utzoo news.admin:14562 news.software.b:7872 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!think.com!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!mejac!orchard.la.locus.com!prodnet.la.locus.com!jbrown From: jbrown@locus.com (Jordan Brown) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b Subject: Re: Really funny jokes being missed Message-ID: <24607@oolong.la.locus.com> Date: 21 May 91 22:29:22 GMT References: <1991May17.170033.17759@dsuvax.uucp> Followup-To: news.admin Organization: Locus Computing Corp, Los Angeles Lines: 15 In article mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >And I have pointed out that certainly in this specific case (my articles >being thrown away due to a bad Date: header) it is trivially easy to fix the >header. Mail systems do it. > [...] >If the error is non-critical and you can still pass on the article, why not >pass it on? The Date: header is _usually_ non-critical - it's _unusually_ for human information only. However, it _is_ one of the fallback mechanisms to deal with problems when broken systems and/or software release garbage onto the net - B news discards articles over a month old to try to squelch floods of old news which might, depending on the failure mode causing them, lead to infinite loops. As such, it's important that it _not_ be fixed incorrectly, because the "fix" could make the problem worse.