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Usenet interprets management as damage and routes around it.
Peter da Silva
The still-current standard for the format of Usenet articles is RFC 1036. It is unfortunately quite old and ambiguous in places, and refers to RFC 822 instead of the current standard for mail messages. It's probably the best guide for implementors but must be taken with a grain of salt and doesn't fully document the current state of Usenet.
One widely referred-to later draft is the so-called Son of 1036, an old Internet Draft that was intended to be a replacement for 1036 but was never formally published. It's more accurate and comprehensive in places, less accurate in others, and documents some changes that were never deployed and probably never will. Anything in it should be checked closely against existing practice.
There is currently work underway towards writing a new standard for the Usenet article format that reflects existing practice and incorporates MIME. For more information, see the USEFOR pages. This is also the best collection of links related to Usenet standards that I know of.
The work of the USEFOR working group was divided into three separate documents: USEFOR, which specifies the basic article format; USEPRO, which specifies the high-level protocol followed by Netnews servers and clients when manipulating messages; and USEAGE (sic), a best-practices guide to implementing news software.
USEFOR is now mostly finished, although it's on hold at the IESG level while we debate whether it can be meaningfully published separate from the USEPRO document.
I am the current document editor for the USEPRO document. You can see the latest released version of my draft here:
The following drafts have been prepared under the aegis of the USEFOR working group. Not all of these are being currently pursued.
Netnews Article Format (74KB)
News Article Architecture and Protocols (104KB)
Usenet Best Practice (104KB)
Cancel Locks in Usenet Articles (9KB)
Recommendations for Generating Message IDs (8KB)
Signed Headers in Mail and Netnews (66KB)
If you're curious about the history of these documents, or want to see the other drafts that have gone into the working group discussions, you can review my draft archive. I may have missed a few, but most of them should be here.
| < Other Writing | Russ Allbery | NNTP > |