Proposal to use of ABNF in RFC977bis's formal syntax

[Paul Overell]

Both RFC977 and draft-barber-nntp-imp-05.txt give the formal syntax of 
NNTP commands using their own syntactic metalanguage as described in 
RFC977 3.

I would like to propose that RFC977bis should use ABNF for its formal 
syntax.  ABNF is currently being standardized, see draft-drums-abnf-
01.txt.  This is the syntactic metalanguage that is used in RFC822 and
in many other RFC's and drafts.

With a standardized ABNF there is no need for RFC authors to invent (and 
explain) their own variety of syntactic metalanguage. 

So, for example

draft-barber-nntp-imp-05.txt, 2.6 XHDR

   XHDR header [range|<message-id>]

would become

   XHDR-command = "XHDR" header [range / msg-id]

   range = article-number ["-" [article-number]]

   etc.


If this proposal is accepted I would like to offer my help to the 
authors, either by producing the new syntax, or by proof reading, or 
whatever. 


-- 
Paul Overell                                        T U R N P I K E  Ltd