mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) (07/01/86)
In article <33400012@ndm20> tp@ndm20 writes: > . . . > To mcb@styx, the title of my note was Response 5 of 5 when I wrote it > on my system. To bad yours can't connect it to the base note of the > discussion. [...] I wish somebody would take Mr. Poot by the hand and explain to him (and others) how Usenet really works. Behind all the news reading interfaces there are actual messages whizzing around between thousands of pairs of systems. These messages have a certain format, which is described in RFC850, Standard for Interchange of USENET Messages (Mark Horton, June 1983). This isn't a formal Internet standard, but it's as close to one as we have. In RFC850 we find the following, with respect to the "Subject:" header: 2.1.6 Subject The Subject line (formerly "Title") tells what the article is about. It should be suggestive enough of the contents of the article to enable a reader to make a decision whether to read the article based on the subject alone. If the article is submitted in response to another article (e.g., is a "followup") the default subject should begin with the four characters "Re: " and the References line is required. (The user might wish to edit the subject of the followup, but the default should begin with "Re: ".) Unfortunately, notes does not cope with this, since users have no way to see or edit the Subject: header to make sure it contains something useful. Notes seems to think that all netnews discussions consist of a "base note" and a number of replies; unfortunately, that paradigm does not translate well to an environment where 1) There are MANY readers and thus many nuances of subject even in a given discussion thread, and people like to edit the subject line to reflect reality; 2) Delivery of messages is completely asynchronous; replies may arrive before their predecessors; and 3) Newsgroups overlap in readership and content; cross-posting (which cannot be done in notes) allows discussions to span different audiences, bring in new readers, avoid needless duplication, and when necessary, painlessly migrate a topic to a more appropriate newsgroup. To briefly answer Mr. Poot's comments, my news system cannot connect his response to a "base note", because there is no such thing as a base note. "Base notes" are an artifact of the notes environment, are local to systems and their connected notes sites, and have no place in the transport layer of netnews. (Rn can easily group together identical subject lines to be read in sequence; I do this all the time.) My question to Mr. Poot is: in a community that uses subject lines to tell what messages are about, why can't your notes system generate a useful one? [Mr. Poot has asserted three times that the "Orphaned Response" bug is "fixed". Well, considering that "Re: Orphaned Response" is the subject of the article to which I am replying, I can only state that I'll consider it fixed when I no longer see such subject lines.] > [...] I hate to be guilty of prejudice on the > basis of association, but I have a hard time paying attention to > anyone at styx saying anything about notes, considering the amount of > bias involved (see the quote in my previous article. It came from > that site). By the way, 2 occurances [sic] of the line eater may be rare, > but it is not gone. No need to apologize. You are undoubtedly referring to the remarks made by Erik Fair about notes. Erik and I are news/mail co-administrators at styx, and naturally we share many of the same views about news, notes, and the internetworked community. Do you read many of the "mod" groups that are gatewayed from ARPANET mailing lists? If so, you may not be aware that he has probably done more than anyone on the net to get the gateway(s) up and running and keep them running. If you'd like to thank him for his efforts, you may send mail to fair@lll-tis-b.arpa (styx!fair). Of course I'm biased -- when notes can give its users a few simple Usenet services like being able to produce a relevant subject line, enforcing a proper qualified-domain From: line, and being able to cross-post, I'm sure my bias will fade away. Michael C. Berch ARPA: mcb@lll-tis-b.ARPA UUCP: {ihnp4,dual,sun}!lll-lcc!styx!mcb
rick@seismo.CSS.GOV (Rick Adams) (07/01/86)
Also note that his version of notes does not generate rational From: lines. At least tack a .UUCP on your address. Virtually all other notes sites get this part right. ---rick
rees@apollo.uucp (Jim Rees) (07/03/86)
Let me remind people that there is no need to put up with orphaned responses. The notes software was fixed ages ago not to produce these atrocities, but some sites are still running ancient software. My news software drops these things on the floor, where they belong. I would urge all sites, especially backbones, to install this code, but only if you understand what it does and agree with its purpose. If you aren't using rn, and don't have the DOXREF code, here is the fix: In inews.c: *************** *** 560,565 xxit(1); } if (is_ctl) { control(&header); localize("control"); --- 569,579 ----- xxit(0); } + if (!strcmp(header.title, "Re: Orphaned Response")) { + logerr("Rejected orphaned response"); + xxit(0); + } + if (is_ctl) { control(&header); localize("control"); If you do have the DOXREF code, here is the fix (sorry, I don't have a diff): if (is_invalid) { logerr("No valid newsgroups found, moved to junk"); localize("junk"); } else if (time((time_t)0) > (cgtdate(header.subdate) + DFLTEXP) ){ logerr("Article too old, moved to junk"); localize("junk"); } else if (!strcmp(header.title, "Re: Orphaned Response")) { logerr("Rejected orphaned response"); xxit(0); } else if (is_ctl) { #ifndef DOXREFS control(&header); #endif localize("control"); } else { if (s_find(&srec, FULLSYSNAME) == FALSE) ...
tim@ism780c.UUCP (Tim Smith) (07/03/86)
In article <20719@styx.UUCP> mcb@styx.UUCP (Michael C. Berch) writes: >[Mr. Poot has asserted three times that the "Orphaned Response" bug is >"fixed". Well, considering that "Re: Orphaned Response" is the subject >of the article to which I am replying, I can only state that I'll >consider it fixed when I no longer see such subject lines.] Put it this way: The "Orphaned Response" bug in notes is fixed just like the "line eater" or "article mangler" bugs in news are fixed. -- Tim Smith USENET: sdcrdcf!ism780c!tim || ima!ism780!tim "hey, bay-BEE'...hey, bay-BEE'" Compuserve: 72257,3706 Delphi || GEnie: mnementh
tp@ndm20 (07/04/86)
/* Written 10:14 pm Jun 30, 1986 by rick@seismo.CSS.GOV in ndm20:net.news */
Also note that his version of notes does not generate rational
From: lines. At least tack a .UUCP on your address. Virtually all
other notes sites get this part right.
---rick
/* End of text from ndm20:net.news */
It is a compile option. If I turn it on, my upstream feed chokes. I
don't control that system. Sorry. I am running the current version
of notes (1.7).
Terry Poot
Nathan D. Maier Consulting Engineers
(214)739-4741
UUCP: {seismo!c1east | cbosgd!sun | ihnp4}!convex!infoswx!ndm20!tp
CSNET: ndm20!tp@smu
ARPA: ndm20!tp%smu@csnet-relay.ARPAtp@ndm20 (07/08/86)
Please don't run the code posted by reed@apollo until someone posts
the newer version of notes he alluded to to mod.sources. I am
running notes 1.7, which is the last version posted (about a year
ago). I don't remember if it was mod.sources or net.sources. I have
been told that many of my recent comments were entitled "Re:
Orphaned Response". Therefore notes 1.7 doesn't fix it, or it is
getting mangled upstream. Please, someone who knows about this, tell
us which is the current version that fixes this problem.
In the mean time, reed@apollo's code unpredictably drops responses
from notes sites on the floor. (Yes I know that many of you couldn't
be happier about that.)
Terry Poot
Nathan D. Maier Consulting Engineers
(214)739-4741
UUCP: {seismo!c1east | cbosgd!sun | ihnp4}!convex!infoswx!ndm20!tp
CSNET: ndm20!tp@smu
ARPA: ndm20!tp%smu@csnet-relay.ARPAguy@sun.UUCP (07/12/86)
> I have been told that many of my recent comments were entitled > "Re: Orphaned Response". Therefore notes 1.7 doesn't fix it, or it is > getting mangled upstream. Please, someone who knows about this, tell > us which is the current version that fixes this problem. Here is a change to the "notes" version that was part of the 4.2BSD "User Contributed Software" distribution. From a quick look at the code, I suspect it'll fix this problem post haste. The change was to the module "bnewsinput.c". If you have source, find whatever module contains the "B news to notes" gateway code and make this fix, or some analogous fix. If you don't have source, pester the person who provided you with the "notes" binary you're running and get *them* to do it. If they refuse, tell them that more and more people may be tempted to install reed@apollo's code.... If this isn't the right fix, would somebody who cares about "notes" as a "notes" user, rather than as a "news" user sick and tired of this "Orphaned Response" bullshit, change it to be the right fix? *** bnewsinput.c.orig Fri Jul 11 21:49:35 1986 --- bnewsinput.c Fri Jul 11 22:01:15 1986 *************** *** 398,404 **** copydate(&entered, ¬e.n_date); gettime(&whentime); /* get current time */ status = ORPHND + FRMNEWS; /* combo there */ ! for (i = 0, p = "Orphaned Response"; (i < TITLEN) && *p; p++, i++) note.ntitle[i] = *p; for (; i < TITLEN; i++) { note.ntitle[i] = ' '; /* pad */ --- 398,410 ---- copydate(&entered, ¬e.n_date); gettime(&whentime); /* get current time */ status = ORPHND + FRMNEWS; /* combo there */ ! p = title; ! while (!strncmp (p, "Re:", 3)) { /* get all re's */ ! p += 3; ! while (*p == ' ') ! p++; /* Skip Spaces */ ! } ! for (i = 0; (i < TITLEN) && *p; p++, i++) note.ntitle[i] = *p; for (; i < TITLEN; i++) { note.ntitle[i] = ' '; /* pad */ -- Guy Harris {ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!guy guy@sun.com (or guy@sun.arpa)
tp@ndm20.UUCP (07/16/86)
Thanks for the fix, Guy. I'll try to get my upstream gateway to
install it. Unfortunately, that is where it has to go. bnewsinput
is not run by most notes sites, only the notes/news gateways.
Terry Poot
Nathan D. Maier Consulting Engineers
(214)739-4741
UUCP: {seismo!c1east | cbosgd!sun | ihnp4}!convex!infoswx!ndm20!tp
CSNET: ndm20!tp@smu
ARPA: ndm20!tp%smu@csnet-relay.ARPAtp@ndm20.uucp (07/18/86)
Guy,
I just got mail from Ray Essick. The fix you posted has been
installed in notes 1.7 for quite some time. It correctly fixes the
problem for articles that come in from news. It does not, however,
fix the problem in the case that a notes site replies to a note that
does not have a base note (the case in which notes still does
generate and orphaned response base note). Since this was the case
when I posted my infamous article saying the problem was fixed, the
title of my notes was Re: Orphaned Response. So I guess the result
is that the problem is partially fixed. The only complete solution
would require the notes database to store the basenote title with
every response. This, of course, would be an incompatible version.
Note that Walter Underwood (of HP) is working on such a beast. It
apparently saves ALL news header lines, and actually transfers files
in and out of the notes site in B news format. This should alleviate
the problem once and for all. It will actually allow a site to run
notes without a gateway, and not make "inappropriate" changes to the
articles. This seems to solve all the objections (but one, see
below) to notes that I have heard. A notes site will be able to
operate transparently in a news environment (C news formats are
compatible, right?).
At this point I'd say it is best to just drop the subject and wait
for the new version.
The one problem that I haven't heard of a solution for yet is the one
of new notes sites sending old data back out. It seems like that
should be easy to fix. Maybe Walter Underwood's version will have a
fix for it.
Terry Poot
Nathan D. Maier Consulting Engineers
(214)739-4741
UUCP: {seismo!c1east | cbosgd!sun | ihnp4}!convex!infoswx!ndm20!tp
CSNET: ndm20!tp@smu
ARPA: ndm20!tp%smu@csnet-relay.ARPA