'Archive-name' usage

Robert J. Granvin rjg at nis.mn.org
Wed Dec 13 09:26:33 AEST 1989


Um, excuse me folks, but would you be a little more cautious in how
you use the "Archive-name:" header in your source postings?

You see, a lot of archivers use that field for _what_it_was_intended_
for_, that being an ... Archive name.

People have recently been using it in place of the "Summary:" header,
and speaking at least for myself, I'd be ecstatic if you'd use the
correct headers.

Some examples of bad Archive-name: usage:

1212:Archive-name: demonstrate ultrix fragmentation reassembly bug
1213:Archive-name: tutor: write to multiple terminals at the same time
1215:Archive-name: tcpcon -- connect an arbitrary process to a device
1216:Archive-name: comment-region, uncomment-region for gnu emacs in C and Lisp modes
1217:Archive-name: from.sed - summarize messages in a mailbox (replacement for BSD from(1))
1218:Archive-name: changes to gnu chess 1.52
1219:Archive-name: m4include, lex, mimics m4 include & passes everything else thru
1220:Archive-name: back-indent.el, reverse of indent-relative for gnu emacs
1221:Archive-name: ersh, rsh front-end which returns the exit status of the remote cmd

And to be fair, some "good" examples (though I don't agree with all of
them, especially since you need to consider that System V sites are
limited to 14 characters, and some of those would be thrilled if you
left two characters for the .Z.  (Of course, the one that goes to 19
characters I find kindof interesting... :-)

1225:Archive-name: shell-filter.el
1226:Archive-name: psroff-Patch04.shar
1227:Archive-name: vt100-termcap
1228:Archive-name: back-indent.el
1229:Archive-name: new-gnus-kill.el
1230:Archive-name: descend
1231:Archive-name: HDB-lock-KA9Q
1232:Archive-name: btol-1.1
1235:Archive-name: mh-folder-list.el
1236:Archive-name: Purdue-dump-mods
1237:Archive-name: uulock
1240:Archive-name: doctype

Your cooperation would be much appreciated.

-- 
________Robert J. Granvin________           INTERNET: rjg at nis.mn.org
____National Computer Systems____             BITNET: rjg%nis.mn.org at nic.mr.net
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       "Paperwork Reduction Plan.  See page one of instruction booklet."
-- 
________Robert J. Granvin________           INTERNET: rjg at nis.mn.org
____National Computer Systems____             BITNET: rjg%nis.mn.org at nic.mr.net
__National Information Services__               UUCP: ...amdahl!bungia!nis!rjg
       "Paperwork Reduction Plan.  See page one of instruction booklet."



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