Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!spool.mu.edu!cs.umn.edu!thelake!steve From: steve@thelake.mn.org (Steve Yelvington) Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: IMPORTANT: Users of Rodney's UUCP modules / GUS Message-ID: Date: 27 May 91 21:08:16 GMT References: <9oXL328w164w@mantis.co.uk> Organization: St. Croix Valley rhubarb and tomato patch Lines: 43 X-UUCP-route: {rutgers,plains,decwrl}!umn-cs!thelake!steve [In article <9oXL328w164w@mantis.co.uk>, mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes ... ] > cudep@warwick.ac.uk (Ian Dickinson) writes: >> No it's not "people at OTHER SITES running C news who are causing postings >> to be lost unnecessarily". >> >> It's YOU, >> at YOUR SITE, >> running SOFTWARE WHICH GENERATES BAD HEADERS UNNECESSARILY. > > I'm afraid I'm stuck with the brain I have. It makes mistakes. It causes > typos. When it causes typos in headers, C News might dump the article. > > I maintain that this is wrong. If Rodney's UUCP modules let you have access to header fields that you have no business messing with, then Rodney's user interface is poorly designed. It's asking for trouble, and it's certain to get it. I'm sure it has plenty of company in that regard -- for all I know, common Unix posting software may be equally deficient; I don't use it -- but expecting a couple of hundred thousand other sites to take responsibility for fixing the mistakes and reporting the errors isn't an appropriate way of dealing with the problem. I'm posting this message from an Atari ST, too, and I have *never* sent out a bad header. I wrote my own posting software and I don't allow myself to have access to anything other than the contents of Newsgroups:, Followup-to: and Subject: fields. Letting humans mess around with any other fields encourages errors and forgeries. This discussion has been enlightening in that it has pointed out that the contents of Newgroups: (and I presume Followup-to:) cannot include spaces if multiple newsgroups are listed. I knew that, and it wouldn't occur to me to insert one, but somebody else might. So when I get around to it, I'll go back into my postnews.c and insert code to parse and clean up those lines in the event that they're incorrect. I'm certainly not going to demand that Henry's software fix mistakes that my software allowed onto the network. ---- Steve Yelvington, Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota, USA / steve@thelake.mn.org