ietf-nntp Empty list on specific group / GROUP response

[Joao Prado Maia]

On Mon, 1 Apr 2002, Russ Allbery wrote:

> Joao Prado Maia <jpm at papercut.org> writes:
> 
> >              If the group is empty, one of the following three situations 
> >              will occur. Clients MUST accept all three cases; servers MUST 
> >              NOT represent an empty group in any other way. 
>               
> >              The high water mark will be one less than the low water mark, 
> >              and the estimated article count will be zero. Servers SHOULD 
> >              use this method to show an empty group. This is the only time 
> >              that the high water mark can be less than the low water mark. 
> >              All three numbers will be zero.
> 
> > Now what exactly does the last paragraph mean ? Maybe it is my english 
> > failing on me, but it first says that on the case that the group is empty, 
> > the response should be three zeros.
> 
> No, that's supposed to be another bullet item.  Let me propose some
> alternate wording.  Let me know if this is cleaner.
> 

<snip>

Yes, that is a lot clearer. Now, what is the rationale for the high water 
mark being less than the low water mark ? Some compatibility issue with 
some NNTP server ?

Regards,
Joao Prado Maia