On 2018 Apr 06 12:45:02, you wrote to me:

 DJ> In article , Mark lewis wrote:
 >> 2. don't fall afoul of thinking that everyone reading usenet uses a
 >> newsreader... many are connected via BBSes...

 DJ> I doubt that there are "many" people using usenet at all, these days.

you might be right :)

 DJ> I will allow that some of those that do choose to eschew the
 DJ> convenience of dedicated newesreader software -- I will even allow
 DJ> that those few may represent a greater proportion of the total of
 DJ> usenet users than was the case in the heyday of usenet -- but I
 DJ> wouldn't say "many" did so ... not since dedicated newsreader software
 DJ> became commonplace.

that depends on one's environment, really...

 DJ> .. but I see you're using something called vSoup. I thought I knew
 DJ> newsreaders, but I don't recall ever hearing of that before now.

nope... that's another system using that software... it is based on SOUP
packets... that system, mine and another >1500 systems, some with hundreds of
users, are all networked together around the world outside of the internet...
the network has been around since the early '80s... today, though, it uses the
internet for its transport whereas previously it used dialup POTS connections
for its users access and mail transmissions... think "store and forward packet
switching"...

 >> 3. define "proper newsreader" and "non-standard quoting prefixes"
 >> ... i can tell you know that i've been quoting and using the same
 >> quoting prefix methodology for 30 years... that seems to be pretty
 >> standard to me ;)

 DJ> I would say that "non-standard quoting prefixes" are quoting prefixes
 DJ> that do not conform to a standard.

interesting... we do have a standard, such as it is... it is not required,
though... no system is forced to recognise or implement it :)

 DJ> The nearest thing we have to a standard is probably RFC3676, which is
 DJ> "only" 14 years old. That RFC addresses the problem of (re-)flowing
 DJ> paragraph text in internet messages (specifically MIME, used by both
 DJ> mail and news services) to remain within the line lengths specified for
 DJ> SMTP and NNTP, and in doing so it makes use of the already widely
 DJ> accepted convention of prefixing quoted lines with '>' characters.

no, that's ""your"" standard... we, in this other network, have our own
standard for quoting messages... our standards are not RFCs, either :)

 DJ> That convention is rather older. RFC1849 was not published until March
 DJ> 2010 -- a mere 8 years ago -- but its text is the content of the
 DJ> "son-of-1036" memo written by Henry Spencer in around 1993/4. I note
 DJ> that the use of '>' as a prefix for quoted text it presented there
 DJ> without comment, suggesting that its acceptance as a 'standard' way to
 DJ> represent quoted text was already so widespread as to require no
 DJ> explanation. 24 years ago.

you'll note that our standard, such as it is, uses the ">" prefixed by the
first letters of the individual's name as written in the FROM field... some
systems add another ">" to existing quotes so that one can easily follow the
level of quoting as they read a message... we also have a TO field, which you
guys do not :) :) :)

 DJ> Yeah, OK, you've been doing it differently for 30 years -- and I note
 DJ> your wry smiley -- but sometimes it pays to move with the times, and I'd
 DJ> argue that compatibility with the RFC3676 *standard* was a good reason
 DJ> to do so, here.

we are moving with the times... we're just moving to a different drummer, my
friend... we can all dance on the same dance floor, too :)

FWIW: perhaps you know, maybe, what the original old-school BBS is? that's
where we come from... pure ASCII text... no HTML or similar muckity muck
:mrgreen:

)\/(ark

Always Mount a Scratch Monkey
Do you manage your own servers? If you are not running an IDS/IPS yer doin' it
wrong...
... McDonald's: Spill a Coffee and WIN!
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