Subject: Re: recognizing if an article was posted to a newsgroup

From: [email-masked] (Sven Guckes)
Date: 9 May 1997 13:11:18 GMT

[email-masked] (*selah*):
> Anyone know if there's a way to set pine so that it will recognize
> or notify whether a newsgroup reply was posted publicly or not?

No.

When I addressed this problem to a developer
asking for a notification I got this answer:

	Quoting myself:
	> And still there is no indication the body of the text sent by that
	> tells me whether this response has been posted or not.  Will this
	> change with Pine-4?

	Quoting developer:
	If you mean an automatic addition of text to that effect, no.
	If you see both a Newsgroup header and To: filled in, you can
	already tell, however, unless a news/mail gateway subverts that.  

So we will have to live with Pine not giving us info about "mail or post".
If only Pine would include an X-Mailer or X-Newsreader to identify itself!
Then you could add whatever to your favourite mailer and let it say
"this was sent with Pine as a MAILER" or even "this was posted with PINE, too".

Well, that's my top wish for Pine-4.  That's why it is in the wishlist I keep:

	http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/pine/#wishlist

Sven

-- 
Sven Guckes [email-masked] [960301] | Latest version: Pine-3.96
PINE Info Pages:  http://www.math.fu-berlin.de/~guckes/pine/
PINE Home Page :  http://www.washington.edu/pine/
PINE Email List:  Pine Information <[email-masked]>

---

From: Paul O Bartlett <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 08:34:14 -0400

On 9 May 1997, *selah* wrote:

> We've had a problem with articles that people send to us in reply to our
> posts in newsgroups. Pine doesn't recognize whether the reply was 
> posted to the newsgroup or was a private reply that wasn't publicly 
> posted.

    Pine itself has no concept of "public" or "private" replies.  Just
incoming emails and newsgroup postings.  Public and private largely
depend on the medium of transmission employed by the sender, which Pine
has no control over.  See reply after third paragraph.  (Of course, in
email there can be encryption for privacy, but that's a different
matter.)
  
> This has caused problems in the past when people sent us a reply that 
> they wanted to remain private and we thought it had been posted publicly 
> because pine asked if we wanted to post to the newsgroup.

    It is possible for a sender to transmit a message as an email and
in the same process send it to a newsgroup.  If an incoming email also
has a newsgroup header, Pine can detect that and query you.  It is up
to you to decide whether you want your secondary reply to go out by
email, by the newsgroup, or both.  Pine is just passively reporting on
what is presented to it.  It is the sender on the other end who
controls things for the message you receive, not Pine on your end.

> Anyone know if there's a way to set pine so that it will recognize or 
> notify whether a newsgroup reply was posted publicly or not?

    This seems a little confused to me.  If a reply (technically called
a followup) is posted to a newsgroup at all, then almost by definition
it is public, whatever the sender's intentions may have been.  Private
replies should go by email.  It is really up to the sender to get the
difference straight, not Pine, which is passive in thic case on the
receiving end.  Once again, Pine has no concept of "public" or
"private."

    In situations like this, a little attention, intelligence, and
knowing how things work go a long way.  Before sending a reply, ALWAYS
CHECK THE HEADERS.  Even experienced users have tripped over their own
feet by not checking the headers closely enough.  No matter how good
software is, at some point some things are up to the user.

Paul                             <[email-masked]>
----------------------------------------------------------
Paul O. Bartlett, P.O. Box 857, Vienna, VA 22183-0857, USA
Finger, keyserver, or WWW for PGP 2.6.2 public key
Home Page:  http://www.access.digex.net/~pobart

---

From: Paul O Bartlett <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 12:48:11 -0400

On 9 May 1997, Sven Guckes wrote:

> [email-masked] (Paul O Bartlett):
> > If a reply (technically called a followup) is posted to a newsgroup at all,
> > then almost by definition it is public, whatever the sender's intentions may
> > have been.  Private replies should go by email.
> 
> So when you receive an email with a message id that includes "pine" -
> how do you know whether it was posted to a newsgroup, too? [...]

    From the message-id alone, I would surmise that you probably can't.

    I just made a check both with my memory and in a spot check of
saved message folders.  All newsgroup postings I could see or recall
which I viewed with Pine have a  Newsgroups:  header, including Sven's,
which he apparently posted with slrn.  I'm not sure just what process
puts this header in, but it is already there in some form or other
before Pine ever gets into the picture as a newsreader.  I run trn in a
sort of batch mode to run killfiles, and I can and do use Newsgroups:
as a kill criterion.  So the Newsgroups: header is not an artifact of
Pine reading the post.  I have also received mail with both a To:
header and a Newsgroups: header, but I presume one knows whether s/he
is reading mail or news.

    I really am rather confused by the original poster's distinction
between "private" and "public" in this arena.  Pine knows of no such
things.  It only knows of mail and news, and news by definition is a
public medium, whether or not Pine even existed.  If you want private,
go to encrypted email.  To be honest, I fail even to see what the real
issue is here.  Is it a question of HOW TO USE PINE to get the results
you want when replying?  That's mostly a matter of paying attention to
what you're doing, watching the headers, and reading the prompts.  As
it now is, Pine's design assumes you can take at least a minimum amount
of responsibility for what you are doing.

---

From: [email-masked] (Sven Guckes)
Date: 12 May 1997 18:08:29 GMT

[email-masked] (Paul O Bartlett):
> > So when you receive an email with a message id that includes "pine" - how
> > do you know whether it was posted to a newsgroup, too? [...]

How about seperate kinds of ids for private/public responses?

> I just made a check both with my memory and in a spot check of saved message
> folders.  All newsgroup postings I could see or recall which I viewed with
> Pine have a  Newsgroups:  header, ...

Well, your posts may be saved like this in your "sent folder" - but I
don't think that Pine adds the Newsgroups line for copies of posts.
It would be very good if Pine *did* add the Newsgroups line!

> I really am rather confused by the original poster's distinction between
> "private" and "public" in this arena.  Pine knows of no such things.

Well, posts do have a Newsgroups line in the header -
so when you "reply" to a message including this line
then it will post it, ie hand it over to, say, "inews".
So why can't Pine be so smart as to add *some* note
to indicate that it was a *public* reply?

> Is it a question of HOW TO USE PINE to get the results you want when
> replying?  That's mostly a matter of paying attention to what you're doing,
> watching the headers, and reading the prompts.

Well, not everybody enjoys reading through the header looking for clues.
It's about time that Pine showed whether you are reading public or private text.

> As it now is, Pine's design assumes you can take at least
> a minimum amount of responsibility for what you are doing.

It would be nice if Pine helped taking care of that by showing you
whether you are seeing a public response or a private one.

I hate messages from Pine just for that -
you never know whether to reply or followup.
Hrmpf

Sven