roskos@IDA.ORG (Eric Roskos) (02/12/90)
Currently there is an increasing tendency for people to put invalid expiration dates in their postings. This morning there were 29 invalid expiration dates, containing words such as "never", "when?", "Someday", "Best before Feb 1", etc. Since this field in the header serves a useful purpose, it seems as if future versions of the news software might better handle invalid information in this field. Some of the invalid fields are genuine errors, such as putting "2/15/90" for the date. The invalid dates show up in the error logs for "C" news, where one must weed through them to find the real errors, wasting already-limited news administrator time. If invalid fields were detected at posting time, as is the case for some of the other fields, people could correct the errors before they get out onto the network. Just a suggestion. -- Eric Roskos (roskos@IDA.ORG or Roskos@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL) "Some countries maintain `fast time' throughout the year, in which case it becomes `standard time'." -- DMA World Map 1150 (USGS)
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (02/13/90)
In article <1990Feb12.142313.29430@IDA.ORG> roskos@IDA.ORG (Eric Roskos) writes: >... The invalid dates show up in the error logs >for "C" news, where one must weed through them to find the real errors, >wasting already-limited news administrator time... If you're running a modern version of C News, expire tells you about these only if you ask it to (with -g). It ignores them in any case, so filtering out the messages is harmless. -- SVR4: every feature you ever | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology wanted, and plenty you didn't.| uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
mholtz@sactoh0.UUCP (Mark A. Holtz) (02/14/90)
Ok, so what is the proper format for expiration dates in Usenet
postings?
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NOTE: If mail does not get through, it probably got SyndEx-ed.brnstnd@stealth.acf.nyu.edu (02/15/90)
In article <2549@sactoh0.UUCP> mholtz@sactoh0.UUCP (Mark A. Holtz) writes: > Ok, so what is the proper format for expiration dates in Usenet > postings? Same as all other dates. One could argue, of course, that only posters who can figure this out should be allowed to use the Expired header. :-) ---Dan