ietf-nntp New wording on article numbers

[Robert Elz]

    Date:        Sat, 28 Dec 1996 02:49:13 +0000 (GMT)
    From:        Jon Ribbens <jon at oaktree.co.uk>
    Message-ID:  <199612280249.CAA15425 at black.oaktree.co.uk>

    This is wrong. The last article number may quite possibly be less than
    that from a previous response for that group. The last article number
    is the highest number corresponding to a currently available
    article - it is *not* the high-water-mark. If there are articles
    2, 3 and 4, then the highest article number is 4. Subsequently
    article 4 may be cancelled, and then the GROUP command must return
    3 as the highest available article.

This can't possibly be right, article number 4 can't be used again,
or readers that have read it before it was cancelled would never
see it's replacement.   The GROUP command isn't intend to give any
kind of authoritative statement about which articles actually exist,
just what the relevant range of numbers is to look in - any of the
articles in the range (including the lower and upper bounds) might
be missing when requested specifically.

I totally agree with the original wording, numbers reported must
never go backwards.

kre