[ietf-nntp] :bytes metadata

[Clive D.W. Feather]

Ken Murchison said:
>> I think Andrew is arguing for us making the following two statements:
>>>* :bytes MUST be greater than the canonical size minus 999.
>>>* :bytes MUST be less than the wire size plus 999.

He is? I don't seem to have seen this message.

> Forgive my ignorance, but where does the magic value 999 come from?

It was just "a reasonable number of bytes of slop". I did add a note
suggesting that other numbers might be used instead.

> Do we really need this abstract bracketing of the value?  What's wrong 
> with stating that :bytes is an estimate which MUST NOT be less than the 
> canonical size?

That was one of the options in my original message. Let me repost it:

====
Actually this is a key point. What do clients do with the :bytes value?
I believe there's a consensus for "SHOULD equal the canonical size", but
should we be making any of the following statements (yes, I know they're
not all consistent with one another):

* :bytes MUST be not less than the canonical size.
* :bytes MUST be not greater than the canonical size.
* :bytes MUST be not less than the wire size.
* :bytes MUST be not greater than the wire size.
* :bytes MUST be less than the canonical size plus 999.
* :bytes MUST be greater than the canonical size minus 999.
* :bytes MUST be less than the wire size plus 999.
* :bytes MUST be greater than the wire size minus 999.
* :bytes MUST be less than the canonical size times 1.2.
* :bytes MUST be greater than the canonical size times 0.8.
* :bytes MUST be less than the wire size times 1.2.
* :bytes MUST be greater than the wire size times 0.8.

(possibly with other values of 999, 1.2, and 0.8).
====

Noting that they're all MUSTs, which ones do you believe should be in the
draft?

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