Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!ukma!rutgers!att!cbnewsh!wcs
From: wcs@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (Bill Stewart 201-949-0705 ho95c.att.com!wcs)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Usenet Top-Level Domain Census
Message-ID: <337@cbnewsh.ATT.COM>
Date: 1 May 89 01:49:28 GMT
References: <164@ncis.tis.llnl.gov> <1660@vicom.COM> <53391@uunet.UU.NET> <335@cbnewsh.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: wcs@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (Bill Stewart 201-949-0705 ho95c.att.com!wcs)
Organization: Your typical phone company involved in your typical daydream
Lines: 22

In article <53391@uunet.UU.NET> rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) writes:
]	"anything but whitespace or @" "@" "valid hostname"
]See RFC822, which the USENET specification defers to in many cases.
]You can have any kind of garbage that you want to the lef tof the
]at sign, but you MUST have an @ and you must have a valid hostname

What about sites that don't have "valid hostname"s, in the sense of
being either a registered Internet node or a .UUCP uunet subscriber?
Sure, you can say "well go register your node with somebody", but
meanwhile, if your machine is 
	randompc
and you get your newsfeed from your nextdoor neighbor, what should
you use?

The implication of the RFC1036 excerpt was that it was nice to be
RFC822 compliant but not strictly required as long as you kept the
delimiters straight.
-- 
# Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G218 Holmdel NJ 201-949-0705 ho95c.att.com!wcs
# also found at 201-271-4712 tarpon.att.com!wcs 

# welcome, to mars, eh?  You hosers have a brew and some donuts!