[NNTP] Additions to LIST commands

[Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho]

On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 09:46:22PM +0100, Julien ÉLIE wrote:
> Hi Antti-Juhani,
> 
> >On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 11:57:18AM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote:
> >>The junk group is sometimes readable and sometimes not.  There is the
> >>problem that if you want it to be readable, j currently tells the client
> >>where the article can be found, whereas if it's not filed at all or in
> >>some other newsgroup, the client can't find it that way.  But I think the
> >>idea of reading the junk group via a regular GROUP junk command is a bit
> >>dubious.  I'm not sure how many people would do that.
> >
> >Sounds like a SHOULD, or even a MAY.  Certainly, the relation to the junk group
> >should be documented.
> 
> 
> What do you want to document exactly?

I think it is a good idea to document that if "j" posts are filed anywhere,
they are filed in "junk", since that is what the current servers are doing.

> What should be a SHOULD?

That messages posted to "j" are filed to the "junk" newsgroup.

I'm looking at this from the point of view of server implementor pondering
whether I should implement "j", and the "file to 'junk'" sounds to me like an
implementation detail that should not be mandated by a (proposed) standard.

The main question is, and I tried to ask this in my original message,
whether the essential property of "j" is "not filed here" or "filed in junk".
If clients and users expect the latter, then messages to "j" MUST or SHOULD
be filed to "junk"; if the former, then messages to "j" MAY be filed to "junk".

> Isn't the note I put in the Internet-Draft what you were looking for?

No.  It currently says, without actually using the keyword, that "j" posts MUST
be filed in "junk".  I'm questioning the validity of that absolute requirement.

>      NOTE:  The status "j" is used only by news servers on which the
>      newsgroup "junk" exists.

This implies that a server MUST not implement "j" if it does not have "junk".

-- 
Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho, Jyväskylä, Finland
http://antti-juhani.kaijanaho.fi/newblog/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/antti-juhani/