ietf-nntp HDR parameter proposal

[Charles Lindsey]

In <ylpton9p5s.fsf at windlord.stanford.edu> Russ Allbery <rra at stanford.edu> writes:

>Accordingly, here's the proposal:

>The HDR extension is indicated by one of the following extension strings:

>    HDR
>    HDR BASE
>    HDR BASE EXTRA
>    HDR ALL

Fine by me, except that I would like to see OVERVIEW as well (naturally).
But the debate is now open, so let us hear what people have to say.

>HDR BASE indicates that HDR is supported for the base overview headers
>Subject, From, Date, Message-ID, and References and the metadata items
>:bytes and :lines.  HDR ALL indicates that HDR is supported for all
>headers.  HDR BASE EXTRA indicates that HDR is supported for all of the
>headers included in HDR BASE plus some additional headers (not specified),
>but not for all headers.

>...; HDR BASE EXTRA will
>generally mean that the server is including "useful" headers so there's a
>reasonable chance that the try will succeed. ...

>One problem is that HDR BASE indicates that Xref is *not* in the HDR
>database, when it's nearly universally included in overview and therefore
>probably is.  On the other hand, HDR BASE EXTRA just because one is
>including Xref may not be a good idea.  We could just add Xref to the base
>HDR headers, but I kind of hate to do that when it's not part of the base
>OVER headers.

I am not worried about Xref, since I doubt this is a header you would
normally be interested in. Headers that have travelled all the way since
the article was injected would be _much_ more interesting for filtering
purposes.

Note that the wording should say that you will get *at*least* the things
listed, so to that extent EXTRA might be superfluous, unless it is
intended to define that "useful" list (that is the sense in which I am
saying that Xref is not "useful").

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
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