Re: Back-references and USEAGE

Charles Lindsey wrote:
> In <40BE8503.6050102 <at> erols.com> Bruce Lilly <blilly <at> erols.com> writes:

>>WG chair confirms that "Re: " is out of scope of USEFOR (document #1,
>>purely syntax & semantics):
> 
> 
> Fine. Nobody is suggesting putting it in document #1, or in the part of
> USEFOR which might become document #1.

USEFOR *is* document #1, by proclamation (and confirmation, and reconfirmation)
of the Chair at the time, as noted in the referenced WG mailing list messages.
You have ignored the Chairs' explicit milestone and timetable for producing
the separate documents #1 and #2, and have inserted text regarding "Re: " in
document #1 contrary to the explicit ruling from the Chair.

> So the possibility of discussing "Re: " in document #2 (and hence in the
> part of USEFOR which might become document #2) was still open at that
> point.

At *that* time, more than a year ago.

>>Message-Id: <p06001709bb1d212f50f1 <at> [216.43.25.67]>
>>Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 17:19:09 -0500
>>From: Pete Resnick <presnick <at> qualcomm.com>
>>Subject: Re: Subject-header and "Re: "
> 
> 
> And it is clear that the subject is not declared closed by that message,
> since he was still discussing methods of resolution.

Note "the users (poster and reader) are not part of the interoperability
chain".

>>After some additional discussion regarding document #2 (document #1 having
>>been ruled upon), I challenged proponents to come of with an example of an
>>interoperability issue which did not involve the user (per that discussion):
> 
>>Not one such example of a non-user interoperability issue was raised.
> 
> 
> Numerous examples of interoperability were raised then, and have been
> raised again in recent weeks. But your ears are stopped, and so you refuse
> to listen to them.

No, Charles. The only issues raised were a hypothetical "some software might
crash" and display (i.e. user) issues.  There were only a small number of
messages posted to the WG mailing list between that challenge and the
appearance of draft 12 containing objectionable language, and not one of them
raised any interoperability issues related to "Re: ".  If they had, I would
have seen them, and I suspect that you would have as well, and moreover that
you would have provided a reference to at least one of the alleged "numerous
examples".  But you cannot, as there were none.

> And if you look at Pete Resnick on Jun 24th, in reply to that very point:
> 
>    Starting with "This is not an issue of non-interoperable behavior" is
>    simply baiting and I would ask you to please refrain in the future.
>    There is no consensus that it is not an interoperability issue and I
>    think the repetition of the statement doesn't help us reach any
>    consensus on the issue.
> 
> And that was about the last time we heard anything from Pete.

Wrong. There were subsequent messages, including at least one indicating that
he was still following WG discussions.

> So it is quite clear that a final ruling on this matter was NOT made last
> year.

No, Charles. Document #1 (USEFOR) was explicitly ruled out.  Document #2 was
restricted to interoperability issues ("network operations") where interoperability
was explicitly defined as excluding user issues.  And interoperability issues
per that definition have ever been raised.  If they had been, I am sure that you
would have provided a reference to one, instead of the same old tired unsubstantiated
blanket statements ("Numerous examples of interoperability were raised then")
that we have come to expect from you.

Neither the presence nor absence of "Re: " in an unstructured, only human-readable
header field causes applications to crash.  It doesn't cause articles to be rejected
when there are no other criteria for rejection, nor does it cause articles to be
accepted when they would otherwise be rejected.  It doesn't affect control messages.
It doesn't affect relaying of articles. It doesn't affect with which newsgroups servers
associate an article. It doesn't cause articles to be expired sooner or later than
would otherwise be the case. It doesn't cause articles to fail to propagate to
specified distributions. It doesn't cause them to propagate more widely than they
should.  It doesn't affect *the* moderation status of newsgroups (if there is such a
thing), or cause unapproved articles to appear in moderated groups (assuming
moderation status can be determined). It doesn't cause articles to be un-reply-able.
It doesn't force mailed responses rather than followups or vice versa. It doesn't
cause loops.  It doesn't cause "reinjection".  It doesn't affect the date of
composition or of injection. It plays no role whatsoever in Message-IDs/References.
It doesn't affect gatewaying of articles to or from news to or from anything else.
It doesn't affect security or privacy.  It doesn't cause or prevent leakage,
baldness, or the heartbreak of psoriasis.  It doesn't cause denial of service or
compromise of system integrity.  In short, there are no interoperability issues.

That was indeed obvious (and not baiting, the past Chair's statement notwithstanding)
a year ago, and it remains obvious today.

As it is obvious (not only from this episode, but from many previous instances) that
we are not going to meet the goal of producing at least one Standards Track document
with the current Document Editor.  We are already more than a year behind the schedule
produced by our chairs in mid-March of 2003. That called for a final draft of document
#1 within "*2* months", i.e. by mid-May of last year.  We currently do not even have
a working draft of document #1 as defined by the co-chairs.  Document #2 was supposed
to have a final draft 2 months later, i.e. by mid-July of 2003.  We do not have *any*
sort of draft of document #2.  Clearly a split to produce documents #1 and #1 was
needed no later than May 2003, but the Document Editor has refused to comply with
direction from the Chair. The Document Editor has inserted objectionable language into
the USEFOR document *after* the topic was ruled out of scope for the USEFOR document.
The Document Editor has recently wasted weeks of WG time by continually deflecting
discussions of injection agent issues related to moderation (with topic Subject clearly
indicating *injection*) even when repeatedly reminded what the topic of discussion was.
The technical issue of the ability and mechanism by which an injection agent is
supposed to be able to determine *the* moderation status of every newsgroup is not
addressed by the draft and no action has been taken to address it.  While the Document
Editor knows about this technical omission (he indeed has reluctantly admitted that it
is an omission), he has not complied with requests to move the related text from the
draft to another document so that we can have a draft of a Standards Track document,
as called for in the WG original charter as well as in direction from the chair over a
year ago.  We need a new Document Editor. This one is broken, and attempting to do our
work with a broken Document Editor isn't possible. It hasn't worked for the past 7+
years, and we can't continue going around in circles for several more years, wearing
out WG Chairs and Area Directors (as well as WG members) in the process.