Subject: Re: #1311 Archive

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 17:49:46 -0700

Charles Lindsey <[email-masked]> writes:

> The current situation is that no X-No-Archive and "X-No-Archive: no" are
> equivalent.

X-No-Archive: no is probably undefined.  I'm not sure anyone has used
that, and I expect at least some archives just check for the existence of
the header.

> Therefore, to retain the current situation, 
>      no X-No-Archive
> plus no Archive

> should be equivalent to "X-No-Archive: no", which is in turn equivalent
> to "Archive: yes".

No, absolutely not.  My lack of expression of any archive policy on my
posts is *absolutely not* the same thing as asserting a policy that anyone
can archive my posts.

I am leaving my archive policy intentionally undefined with the
understanding that some sites have chosen to take that as permission.  I
am *not* estopping myself from taking exception to that decision in the
future should I have grounds and reason to do so.  I am most certainly not
making a public statement that archiving my posts is unconditionally fine
by me.

This is exactly why I object to the default language.  We have no business
saying that everyone on Usenet is agreeing to have their posts archived
unless they include this new header that we just made up.  The default
archive policy and the legal ramifications thereof (and whether it differs
in different jurisdictions, etc.) is outside the scope of our document.

-- 
Russ Allbery ([email-masked])             <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 14:43:00 GMT

In <[email-masked]> Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]> writes:

>"Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]> wrote:

>[Supersedes]

>> "This header MUST/SHOULD NOT be used unless the Newsgroups header
>> field of the article contains at least one <newsgroup-name> in
>> common with with the Newsgroups header field of the superseded
>> article."
>>
>> MUST vs SHOULD is open to discussion.

>At most SHOULD, but I think that is too strong.

I have no problem with not making the change, but Frank raised the point
and so I suggested wording that would address it. I see that he still
wants it fixed. But I think we would all agree that SHOULD is as far as we
need go.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: [email-masked]      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 14:29:35 GMT

In <[email-masked]> Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]> writes:

>The standard should NOT say anything like "Lack of an Archive: header
>means <X>".

>If I post "Archive: yes" I'm granting permission to archive.  If I
>post "Archive: no" I'm explicitly denying permission to archive.  If I
>don't include an Archive header I'm not doing either (at least, not in
>that way).

But nobody is ever going to write "Archive: yes", any more that anybody
currently writes "X_No_Archive: no", because the general understanding is
that if they write nothing that will be the effect, i.e. Google et al will
assume that they don't object. That is the state that I wish to preserve.

If they have 2nd thoughts, or they want to negotiate with Google in other
ways, then other mechanisms are available (as Frank has pointed out)

>It does not seem useful to force the poster to make a decision that
>isn't necessary.

I don't think we are forcing the poster to decide anything. Just pointing
out the consequences if he does nothing.

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 14:38:20 GMT

>that, and I expect at least some archives just check for the existence of

Would things be simpler if we defined a No-Archive header rather than an
Archive header?

>posts is *absolutely not* the same thing as asserting a policy that anyone

OK, then would you be happy with a wording such as:

   "Posters should be aware that omission of this header field (or of the
   X-No-Archive used for this purpose hitherto) is likely to be
   interpreted as implying "Archive: yes".

>future should I have grounds and reason to do so.

OK, but in the face of current existing practice you would have a hard
time making that case.

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2006 11:04:39 -0700

>    interpreted as implying "Archive: yes".

No.

---

From: Richard Clayton <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 19:14:20 +0100

In message <[email-masked]>, Russ Allbery
<[email-masked]> writes
>>    interpreted as implying "Archive: yes".

I agree ... suppose someone successfully sues Google for archiving
without permission.  If they obey the court then omission will mean no
archiving (by them). Hence such a statement will be wrong (and
obstructive to the decision of the court...)

Omission is "undefined" ... with all that that implies for differing
occurrences at different points in space and time.

- -- 
richard                                                   Richard Clayton

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary 
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin 11 Nov 1755

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2006 20:27:21 +0200

Charles Lindsey wrote:
 
> would you be happy with a wording such as:
 
>  interpreted as implying "Archive: yes".

No, that's not the case.  I'm aware that if I post a net news
article then it will be transported to various news servers,
and read by some folks.  They might even archive it for private
purposes.  After some time the article will expire from almost
all servers, and that's it.  It doesn't imply "Archive: yes".

Frank

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 2006 11:44:31 -0700

I think we have a consensus-minus-Charles that not putting an Archive: 
header on an article means that there is no Archive: header on the 
article, and that there is no standardized meaning for its absence.

                      Harald

---

From: Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 15:47:06 -0400 (EDT)

> No, that's not the case.

Yes, it is.  Hint: How does Google interpret lack of the X-No-Archive
header?

>  I'm aware that if I post a net news article then it will be
> transported to various news servers, and read by some folks.  They
> might even archive it for private purposes.  After some time the
> article will expire from almost all servers, and that's it.  It
> doesn't imply "Archive: yes".

That's the point.  Posting without the header is _neither_ granting
permission nor denying permission.  However, many third parties
(e.g. Google) will archive articles that lack the header.  That is a
simple fact.

Whether or not we should state that fact (and in which document) is a
separate issue, and not one I find worth arguing over.

Seth

---

From: Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 15:18:55 -0400 (EDT)

>   interpreted as implying "Archive: yes".

That's fine with me, but is USEFOR the right place for it?

Seth

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 10:25:02 GMT

>That's fine with me, but is USEFOR the right place for it?

Well I think at least s/likely/may well/ or s/is likely/is, under current
practice, likely/, in order to meet Russ's objection.

As to where to say it, read section of 8.3 of USEPRO (which may need
revision when this matter is settled). It could go there, or maybe the
whole of that 8.3 could be moved into USEFFOR.

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 10:06:51 GMT

>all servers, and that's it.  It doesn't imply "Archive: yes".

No, the Archive header does not apply to either of those cases.

"Long term or permanent" excludes servers which expire articles on the
sort of timescale normally encountered.

"publicly available" excludes private purposes.

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 10:14:22 GMT

>article, and that there is no standardized meaning for its absence.

Not quite. I see that Seth is prepared to contemplate my revised
("likely") wording, though not necessarily with those words, and not
necessarily in that place. And the wording would need to be revised to
address Russ's point that it could become invalidated if Google lost some
court case (unlikely, but you never know).

But if we are to remain totally silent on this issue, then I think it
would be better to drop the Archive header entirely and leave it to the
present confused situation - which would be a pity because I think we all
agree that X-headers are a Bad Thing except for private/vanity purposes.

---

From: Russ Allbery <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 06:07:44 -0700

Charles Lindsey <[email-masked]> writes:
> Seth Breidbart <[email-masked]> writes:

> practice, likely/, in order to meet Russ's objection.

That will not meet my objection.

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 03 Aug 2006 13:28:14 +0200

Charles Lindsey wrote:
 
> the wording would need to be revised to address Russ's point
> that it could become invalidated if Google lost some court
> case (unlikely, but you never know).

Really, the "net news article format" is a technical document,
it shouldn't depend on or consider hypothetical court cases
wrt one particular archive, even if it's admittedly the most
famous Usenet archive.

> But if we are to remain totally silent on this issue, then I
> think it would be better to drop the Archive header entirely
> and leave it to the present confused situation

We offer "yes" and "no", and both make sense if there is no
wannabe-default.  That's not silent, it's IMO fine, or at least
better than the unofficial x-no: yes kludge.

Besides Archive: no is less confusing than x-NoArchive: yes.

> which would be a pity because I think we all agree that
> X-headers are a Bad Thing except for private/vanity purposes.

I'm not sure about that argument, when x-No was invented back
in 1995 (or was that earlier ?) it was a plausible idea.  Minus
its weird "say yes to no" syntax.

Today we have a new nice header field registry, folks should
start use it, it's no rocket science, and Bruce has written a
kind of "header field how to" RFC.  Also rather new.

I'd seriously consider to kill "Archive" if it would allow us
to get rid of <parameter>, but that's not the case, we need it
also for Injection-Info.

Bye, Frank

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 12:02:36 GMT

>wrt one particular archive, even if it's admittedly the most

That is all true, but technical documents often give warnings about the
consequences of using/not using certain features. In IETF documents, this
is usually done in a "Security Considerations" section - but this is not
quite a security issue, though it is certainly a "this is a way for
unexpected things to happen" issue. That is why, when we wrote the
Archive header (that was many years back) we wrote a "Security and Related
considerations" section to go with it, with a sub-section on "Liability"
within that. When the split came, that section landed up in USEPRO. It is
certainly a reasonable place to warn of possible effects of omitting an
Archive header, though it might be better moved to USEFOR.

>better than the unofficial x-no: yes kludge.

Yes, but nobody is ever going to write Archive: yes (have you ever seen
X-No-Archive: no?). They will just presume that if they write nothing,
then Google (and anywhere else) will just go ahead. So we need to warn
them of this likely consequence (but I accept that it need not be written
as rigidly as in the present draft).

>Besides Archive: no is less confusing than x-NoArchive: yes.

I agree with that. But X-No-Archive currently comes with a generally
accepted convention of what happens if you leave it out.

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 05 Aug 2006 16:02:39 +0200

Charles Lindsey wrote:

> technical documents often give warnings about the
> consequences of using/not using certain features.

Here that's about "not using Archive: yes".  Apparently you
would prefer a default "yes", and then this value whould be
in essence redundant.  Folks supporting that solution could
argue to get rid of the "yes" - same idea as for "all" and
"world" wrt Distribution.

I don't support this, I'm more (mildly) interested in future
parameters like GFDL or cc-by-sa, maybe cc-by-nc, for the
Archive header field.

> nobody is ever going to write Archive: yes (have you ever
> seen X-No-Archive: no?).

This double "no" was never a good idea, in some languages it
could be mistaken for a strong no.  The purpose of an explicit
Archive: yes is to be available on demand.  It tells archivers
that they can't assume that anything they do is automatically
okay _without_ an explicit "Archive: yes".

IMO they've to offer some way to get rid of articles.  As it
happens I tried to track this down wrt IETF lists carried by
GMaNe yesterday, arriving at http://gmane.org/expiry.php and
http://www.ietf.org/maillist.html

Apparently it's possible to purge articles from GMaNe, but not
necessarily from IETF archives - unless you'd find someone
willing to manually edit obscure application/mbox files on a
public IETF FTP server.  Maybe it also depends on the IETF list
in question, there are different "hosters" (list owners), and
it can be hard to solve technical problem with the IETF, unless
you know who does what (Bill, Dave, Harald, Henrik, Marshal,
Ned, Paul, Randy, and many others).

> we need to warn them of this likely consequence

When "deja" started to archive articles I was annoyed (behind
a maze of gateways) and used X-No for some time.  More than a
decade ago.  The mere existence of the "Archive" header field
is a warning.  After all folks are supposed to know that it
has consequences if they post in a public group / list / forum.

Adding warnings everywhere is dubious, "a supersedes might be
honoured by some but not all servers", "a cancel might be ..."
- we could write a complete document about the finer points of
the various kinds of "cancel" messages - and the same goes for
"expires" and "distribution".

As soon as you start to talk about legal issues you lose, I'd
avoid it where possible.  A recommendation that public archives
SHOULD offer to delete articles (for original or faked posters)
could make sense.  But probably not in USEFOR.

> But X-No-Archive currently comes with a generally accepted
> convention of what happens if you leave it out.

Yes, let's agree to disagree about this.  If I'd find my (e.g.
this) article "sold" by a commercial archive I'd ask them to
stop this.  And if I make exceptions for Google considering it
as "non-commercial" (and because I know how to purge articles
there if I'd want it) that's my business, not some "generally
accepted convention" I'd wish to document in a standard.

Frank

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 06 Aug 2006 21:54:50 -0700

Charles Lindsey wrote:
> X-No-Archive: no?).

http://www.thescripts.com/forum/thread172325.html

give them the tools, and they will proceed to use it.

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 09:42:03 GMT

>"world" wrt Distribution.

No, I accept there is no consensus for a formally defined default. All I
am pressing for is some mention of the likely (and de facto) consequnce of
silence.

>parameters like GFDL or cc-by-sa, maybe cc-by-nc, for the

Sure, and we have left space for future parameters that may turn out to be
necessary/usefful.

>okay _without_ an explicit "Archive: yes".

I doubt archivers are going to take that view (unless some court forces
them to - possible but unlikely).

>http://www.ietf.org/maillist.html

I agree, and most of them do (but only provide well-hidden hurdles for
those who seek to do so). I would have no problem saying that (in the
Security and Related section, for example). But I am not pressing for
that.

>has consequences if they post in a public group / list / forum.

Yes, I think that was a likely reaction from most people. The present
situation is that most people find it Google a useful resources to
retrieve _other_ people's articles, but are mildly irritated to find their
own articles archived there :-( .

Which is why they will grudgingly omit any Archive header (in full
knowledge that Google will then archve it), but are unlikely to explicitly
permit it using Archive: yes.

>"expires" and "distribution".

Maybe USEAGE is the place to say these things. WOuld people find that
better?

---

From: "Ruud H.G. van Tol" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 2006 13:40:42 +0200

Harald Alvestrand schreef:
> Charles Lindsey:

>> Yes, but nobody is ever going to write Archive: yes 
>> (have you ever seen X-No-Archive: no?).

Plenty.

> give them the tools, and they will proceed to use it.

My favourite is Archive: please. 

-- 
Groet, Ruud

---

From: Harald Alvestrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 05:33:10 +0200

> Maybe USEAGE is the place to say these things. WOuld people find that
to me, this seems a good fit for what USEAGE aims to be.

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 2006 15:27:52 +0200

Charles Lindsey wrote:

> Maybe USEAGE is the place to say these things. WOuld people
> find that better?

Yes.  Not a complete "roll your own cancel-bot" guide, but some
essential technical points from Rosalind's + Skirvin's FAQs.

For the semantics of "Archive: no" we could say that it's often
interpreted as a deliberately unspecified "Expires: 'soon'".

Unless you have that already in USEPRO.  The complete section
8.3 in USEPRO could be moved to USEAGE, and / or trimmed to a
"TPOV" (= technical POV, I just made this up).

Frank

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 2006 12:53:15 GMT

>essential technical points from Rosalind's + Skirvin's FAQs.

OK, I have written the following into my draft of USEAGE. Never mind about
the exact wording, we can discuss that when we come to USEAGE. But if
people are happy that something along those lines should appear, then I
don't mind if mention of the Archive default is omitted from USEFOR.

0.0.1.  Archive

   There are various sites which attempt to keep a permanent (or at
   least exceedingly long term) archive of every article posted to
   Usenet (or to some part of it) and to make them available for public
   searching and download.  Clearly, this has Copyright implications
   which go beyond the normal presumptions set out in P-8.3.  Some
   posters take great exception to having their words on public display
   for ever (whereas other posters find it a useful resource of
   information).
[It has also been suggested that P-8.3 should be moved into this
document.]

   Posters who wish to exercise their right to withold permission for
   such sites to redistribute their words may include the header
   "Archive: no", and likewise "Archive: yes" explicitly to allow it
   (F-3.2.12).  The effect of omitting this header entirely is not
   defined, but posters should be aware that the current practice is for
   such sites to assume that such absence implies consent, and to go
   ahead and archive it anyway.

        NOTE: The header "X-No-Archive: yes" (somewhat confusingly
        named) has hitherto been used for this purpose and archiving
        sites will doubtless continue to take note of it, but in writing
        [USEFOR] the opportunity was taken to standardize it without
        that negative in it.

>"TPOV" (= technical POV, I just made this up).

I think it is clear that USEPRO is the wrong place for P-8.3, since it has
nothing to do with the protocols. Either USEFOR of USEAGE would be more
sensible, and somehow I think it unlikely that it will get into USEFOR at
this stage.

---

From: Frank Ellermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2006 23:08:17 +0200

Charles Lindsey wrote:

> Never mind about the exact wording, we can discuss that when
> we come to USEAGE.

Okay, otherwise I'd say that it should also offer something
for sites like GMaNe (= not Usenet), and especially more than:

> Some posters take great exception to having their words on
> public display for ever

...or to be sold as some kind of "support"

> The effect of omitting this header entirely is not defined,
> but posters should be aware that the current practice is for
> such sites to assume that such absence implies consent, and
> to go ahead and archive it anyway.

...that's IMO still beside the point, they do offer ways to get
rid of articles, probably because they know that there is _no_
automatical + irrevocable consent (without Archive: yes).

> sites will doubtless continue to take note of it, but in
> writing [USEFOR] the opportunity was taken to standardize it
> without that negative in it.

Yes, that's good.  This note would be also okay in USEFOR, but
better keep it together with USEPRO 8.3 and all other "Archive
considerations" moved to USEAGE.

Frank

---

From: "Charles Lindsey" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2006 12:57:30 GMT

>for sites like GMaNe (= not Usenet), and especially more than:

Sure. When we come to discuss USEAGE in detail it will be in order to
propose further related items such as that. But if we are all happy that
advice and warnings rgearding how to use the Archive header are OK in
USEAGE, then we can omit them from USEFOR, and move on.