* W. eWatson:
Sort of like outer space I guess. No real direction. How would I find
the message ID?
In Thunderbird (the newsreader that you're using) there's a little '+' to the
left of the message subject line.
That shows the headers.
You can alternatively use [View -> Message Source], or keyboard [Ctrl U].
From that you find that the message id is
[email protected]
Then, kicking and cajoling your web browser to turn in the direction of Google
Groups' Usenet archive,
groups.google.com
you click the "Advanced search" button, paste the message id, and find that
Google is unable to find your article, he he.
It's common, it's a very very unreliable archive.
However, as with most things, the "Great Wall of Google" prevents you from
reporting this. There's no known way to report any bug to Google. As with
Microsoft in the old days (reportedly Microsoft employees weren't even allowed
to use the words "bug" or "error" with customers, only, at worst, "problems"),
there are Google web forms and whatnot, but they all end up in cul-de-sacs, so
that, together with the total impossibility of reaching any human at Google, one
very very strongly suspects that it's Google *policy* to never admit to bugs, or
waste time on fixing them. And so, I suspect, Google Earth still places Norway
in the middle of Sweden, and I know for a fact that Google Groups still actively
removes the space at the end of a valid signature delimiter, and Google Talk
acts up in various ways, and so on: quite serious bugs, but no way to report
them (thousands upon thousands have tried, at one time a movement was founded
with its own web site, but the "Great Wall of Google" lets no-one through).
And considering this, and the fact that Google's archive is now the main Usenet
archive, message id's are not that useful, really.
So asking for a Usenet article's message id is just showing off -- that one is
not up-to-date on current technology (it gets more unreliable year by year).
It's easier to place the comment here:
There seems to be some controversy about this and other matters of
datetime.
<
http://blog.twinapex.fi/2008/06/30/...ortcomings-in-python-datetime-and-workaround/>
No, not at all.
Instead, just ignore silly requests for message id's.
Cheers & hth.,
- Alf