Never seen this before ...

[Lloyd Bonafide]

An RFC, and you say "definitely optional"? Despite the name
(Request For Comments), RFC's are the official standards for the
net.

Really? Then why does this one begin with this:


Status of This Memo

This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
this memo is unlimited.

Abstract

This document provides a minimum set of guidelines for Network
Etiquette (Netiquette) which organizations may take and adapt for
their own use.

 

[James Kanze]

(e-mail address removed):

Really? Then why does this one begin with this:

Status of This Memo

This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
this memo is unlimited.

Because it doesn't place any formal constraints on software
connecting to the net.

Abstract

This document provides a minimum set of guidelines for Network
Etiquette (Netiquette) which organizations may take and adapt for
their own use.

Exactly. It's *minimum* set of guidelines. Organizations may
place stricter restrictions. And of course, because it's the
Internet, you won't go to jail for violating them.

 

[Michael DOUBEZ]

Lloyd Bonafide a écrit :

Really? Then why does this one begin with this:

This memo does not specify an Internet standard of any kind.

This document provides a minimum set of guidelines for Network
Etiquette (Netiquette) which organizations may take and adapt for
their own use.

Of course it is not a standard but IPv4, IPv6, TCP, UDP, HTTP, FTP ...
Most of Internet, network and serial communication protocols have been
standardized through the RFC. And not all RFC are standards, some are
drafts ... You might want to have a deeper look before drawing conclusion.

Only the most perverted mind would want to standardize behavior. It is
stated as guidelines. Those are rules commonly accepted (like a chart)
but there is no authority to enforce them except the community. The
rules are here to regulate the communication such that the information
rate stays acceptable. Trolls are known to use 100 or more lines in
their signature.

If you want to know more about the Netiquette specific to comp.lang.c++,
you can have a look at:
http://www.parashift.com/c++-faq-lite/how-to-post.html
Although some people may not agree with all the points in it.

Concerning what you can do: you can get involve into a political action
to make those rules deprecated. Create an anti-signature group and
promote the idea of not using signature on USENET. If you can change the
culture, then most people will write 'Please, do not use .sig - see
Netiquette' when someone uses one.

Have a look into news.announce.newusers for more information about
general USENET usage.

Michael

 

[Lloyd Bonafide]

Of course it is not a standard but IPv4, IPv6, TCP, UDP, HTTP, FTP ...
Most of Internet, network and serial communication protocols have been
standardized through the RFC. And not all RFC are standards, some are
drafts ... You might want to have a deeper look before drawing
conclusion.

Only the most perverted mind would want to standardize behavior. It is
stated as guidelines. Those are rules commonly accepted (like a chart)
but there is no authority to enforce them except the community. The
rules are here to regulate the communication such that the information
rate stays acceptable. Trolls are known to use 100 or more lines in
their signature.

I don't disagree with what you say, and in fact it reinforces my
original complaint - that .sigs were somehow kosher, but quoting them is
not because of some non-binding text called an RFC, which in the case of
posting guidelines, is an abbreviation for "somebody's opinion".

On one hand, you guys say suggest that RFCs are mere suggestions, on the
other they seem to hold some authority. Frankly, it smacks of
religion.

 

[Michael DOUBEZ]

Lloyd Bonafide a écrit :

On one hand, you guys say suggest that RFCs are mere suggestions, on the
other they seem to hold some authority. Frankly, it smacks of
religion.

I don't know what 'smack' means (smell?).

It is not about religion but about culture. There are very few rules
that are not considered as acceptable in a culture or another (the only
exception is incest which is forbidden by all society through out the
ages). The fact is that for a group of people to work, they must
establish way to interact and in particular set limits to personal
wishes or laziness.

The guidelines are considered good practice just like good manners
matters in real life - they are not rules but codify and give a
structure to interaction:
1. greeting: 'hello'
2. statement of purpose:'do you know/want/have ... ?'
3. gratefulness: 'thank you'
4. leaving: 'good bye'
If you miss a step, you won't go to jail but you have nonetheless missed
an efficient interaction.

Signatures were considered as having an interest (the number 4 lines is
a detail) but it seems logical that signatures must be trimmed,
otherwise, over n messages you have 4*n lines of signature which
drastically diminish the information/noise ratio.

I feel like I repeat myself so I will stop here. There are extensive
documentation about USENET that explain far better than I and with more
accuracy.

Michael

 

[Jerry Coffin]

[ ... ]

On one hand, you guys say suggest that RFCs are mere suggestions, on the
other they seem to hold some authority. Frankly, it smacks of
religion.

Hardly. The simple fact is that some RFCs are "standards track" and
really do hold some authority. Other RFCs are not, and have less
authority.

Realistically, IETF in its entirety has very little in the way of real
authority. Almost all RFCs are really just guidelines that allow people
to get things to work together.

In some cases, failing to follow them will result in things not working
at all -- e.g. it's an RFC that says what port your DNS client should
use to talk to a DNS server. If you write a client that tries to use a
different port number, it's almost certain that it will not work with
any RFC-compliant DNS server.

In other cases, the system is sufficiently resilient to keep working to
some degree even when the RFC is ignored. This case is a bit like that:
quoting .sig's is asinine wasteful and stupid, but isn't quite bad
enough to completely stop the system from working at all.

 

[lbonafide]

quoting .sig's is asinine wasteful and stupid,

And including .sigs is virtuous because some guy said they were in an
RFC? "Later, Jerry" is somehow not wasteful on every single post you
make?

Anyway, hold onto your dogma. I'm not trying to take it way, just
pointing out the hypocrisy.

 

[Default User]

Anyway, hold onto your dogma. I'm not trying to take it way, just
pointing out the hypocrisy.

About enough of this troll.


*plonk*




Brian

 

[Jerry Coffin]

And including .sigs is virtuous because some guy said they were in an
RFC?

No -- limiting them is virtuous.

"Later, Jerry" is somehow not wasteful on every single post you
make?

IMO, no. Signing what you do (electronically or otherwise) isn't
wasteful at all.

Anyway, hold onto your dogma. I'm not trying to take it way, just
pointing out the hypocrisy.

You can try, and it's unlikely that anybody will stop you. OTOH, the
newsgroup does have a topic, and spending all your time being asinine
will only get you plonked. The result is obvious and nearly inevitable:
when/if you do have something to say or ask that's topical, nobody will
listen or reply.

 

[blangela]

If I signed my posting in the body of the message, everyone would have
to trim it.  The point of signatures and the signature delimiter is
proper news readers snip them and format them correctly.

This worked fine until google came along and decided to ignore Usenet
convention.  Not only does their abomination of an interface not snip
signatures, it thwarts attempts by its unfortunate users to include a
correctly formatted one.

I did not mean to make such a fuss!!!

Only looked back at this thread now that I started several days ago
was quite amazed. I actually though the high number of replies were
discussing how Microsoft handles the syntax error. Foolish me.

I do use google as my usenet browser, so I guess this is why it
happened (my bad ediquette).

When I created this reply, I deleted the last 2 quoted lines that
included Ian's name. Is that what I was supposed to have done in the
first place? I will try to remember to do so in the future.

Again, sorry to have unintentionally created such a fuss.

Bob

 

[Nick Keighley]

I don't know what 'smack' means (smell?).

pretty good guess! I'm a native english speaker and I knew what is
meant
but for a precise definition I had to look it up.

Smack \Smack\, n. [OE. smak, AS. ssm?c taste, savor; akin to D.
smaak, G. geschmack, OHG. smac; cf. Lith. smagus pleasant.
Cf. Smack, v. i.]
1. Taste or flavor, esp. a slight taste or flavor; savor;
tincture; as, a smack of bitter in the medicine. Also used
figuratively.
[1913 Webster]