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From: bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Usenet in Hypertext form
Message-ID: <8711031910.AA18234@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: Tue, 3-Nov-87 14:10:29 EST
Article-I.D.: bu-cs.8711031910.AA18234
Posted: Tue Nov  3 14:10:29 1987
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Tanner Andrews points out the importance of finding an escape for
hypertext information which does not coincide with any commonly used
software and some other points. Totally agreed. The best way to do
this is to keep suggesting possibilities until no one in a large and
diverse group can find any objection. Here's another possibility
very similar to my last:

	\[anything]

Does anyone know of any objection to this format (backslash followed by
balanced square brackets) other than the slight possibility someone might
want to send such a thing anyhow for no major reason (ie. not as necessary
syntax for a major package.)

One other safeguard could be a header field which indicates whether
or not this message should be interpreted at all, as in:

	Format: hypertext

which could be yet-another-catchall hook which is easily implemented.

I do agree tho that even such a hook cannot solve all problems as
obviously one might wish to send troff or TeX text hypertex'd (in fact
perhaps the whole backslash idea should be canned due to it's
prevalence in word-processing, maybe replace it with colon?)

Just thinking out loud.

	-Barry Shein, Boston University