PE> You've been keeping a record of all the MSGIDs I have generated
PE> from this address in the last 3 years?  I sure haven't.

ac> No, and for me to do so would be virtually
ac> impossible - there are too many variables involved.

ac> The chance of you generating two identical MSGIDs, AND the additional
ac> chance of systems down the line detecting it, should be low enough for

PE> To "detect" it, I use Squish's "Duplicates"
keyword.  In any conference
PE> that I have defined that has a low number of messages (e.g. 1 per day),
PE> and I happen to be keeping 1000 duplicates per area (the Squish
PE> default), then I will indeed keep 3 years worth of this information,
PE> and if you attempt to send me a duplicate MSGID, your message will be
PE> lost without warning when it passes through this system.

Yes, but as he says, the chance of that happening, someone keeping that
period, and you accidentally reusing the SAME MSGID in the SAME very low
volume area, is indeed utterly microscopic. And if that risk does actually
worry you, the answer is to improve the dupe delete mech so it only does
an unconfirmed delete when the other fields match TOO, and say asks for
confirmation if they dont also match. Far better than just ditching MSGID
for such a microscopic risk.

ac> you to realise that the problem is not worth particularly
ac> worrying about unless you have nothing else to worry about.
ac> The benefits far outweigh the one small potential disadvantage IMO.

He's right.

PE> Like what benefit is that?

Plenty.

PE> Certainly it's of absolutely no use for getting an address from.

Thats wrong for starters, its more rigorously defined than the other source.

PE> It's only use is for duplicate detection,

Nope, there are a variety of other benefits, particularly when
its turned into a valid REPLYID when replied to. You have a quite
unambiguous specification of what its a reply to. And thats not
just useful for threading either.

PE> and that's the problem I'm most worried about.

For microscopic risk which can be readily
fixed if if really does worry you.

PE> For unimportant thinks like reply-threading on the
PE> local BBS, you may as well just use the subject line.

Nope, doesnt handle a subject line change, which happens often.

ac> FTS-9 was designed to be used, not ignored.  Don't ignore
ac> (ok, half of) it because you're afraid of it breaking

PE> That's not my attitude towards specs.

You have an attitude problem |-)

--- PQWK202