Newsgroups: news.software.readers,comp.sys.mac.comm,news.admin.misc
From: twpierce@midway.uchicago.edu (Tim Pierce)
Subject: GNKS/A: Nuntius 2.0.1
Message-ID: <D5Jwp9.Csx@midway.uchicago.edu>
Organization: University of Chicago -- Academic Information Technologies
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 1995 20:53:33 GMT

Enclosed is my Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval evaluation of
Nuntius 2.0.1.

The Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval attempts to establish a
standard for newsreader behavior on Usenet.  For more information
on the aims and requirements of the Good Net-Keeping Seal of
Approval, see

   <URL:http://www.media.mit.edu/people/rnewman/Good_Netkeeping_Seal>

------------------------------

I found that Nuntius 2.0.1 failed to meet the Good Net-Keeping
Seal of Approval guidelines in the following ways:

 1. Displaying essential header information.

    When Nuntius displays a news article to the user: the
    following headers are displayed: Subject, From and Date.
    Nuntius does not display the contents of the Newsgroups,
    Followup-To, or Reply-To headers.  In order to display these
    headers, the user must click on "Show Full Headers" under the
    Articles menu.

 4. Changing essential headers during message composition.

    When a user begins to post a new article, Nuntius prompts only
    for the Subject, Newsgroups and Distribution headers.  By
    default, Nuntius does not permit the user to edit headers
    while editing an article; the user must open the "Editing
    articles" dialog box under the Prefs menu, and click on the
    "Edit headers (for wizards)" option.

    Compounding the problem, after the user begins to edit the new
    article, there is *no* way to change even the Newsgroups or
    the Distribution header without selecting this "wizards"
    option.  While it may be considered wise to prevent novice
    users from editing delicate information such as the From or
    References headers, it is ridiculous to think of changing such
    simple and common headers as Followup-To, Reply-To, and even
    Newsgroups, as "wizard" options.  These options should be
    available by default even to novice users, who need more than
    anyone to be made aware of them.

 5. Followups and e-mail replies containing correct Subject headers.

    An extra "Re:" is prepended to the Subject of an e-mail reply
    regardless of whether one is already present.

 7. Maintaining References headers.

    Nuntius keeps only a single Message-ID in the headers it
    propagates.  This is only minimally compliant behavior.

10. Providing a valid Subject header.

    Although Nuntius requires that you specify a subject when you
    begin to post an article, it does not prohibit you from
    deleting the Subject line after editing the article, and then
    attempting to post the result.  Since the entry bar containing
    the Subject header is selected upon exiting the editor, it can
    be very easy to delete accidentally simply by pressing a
    single key.

11. Providing a valid From header

    Before you post an article, Nuntius requires that you specify
    your name and e-mail address in the "Your name" dialog box in
    the Prefs menu.  Nuntius requires that the e-mail address you
    specify contain an "@", but does not perform much syntax
    checking beyond that.  Specifically, it considered an address
    consisting of a single "@" and nothing more legal.  Nor did
    it, apparently, attempt to verify that the address specified
    did indeed belong to me.

12. Providing accurate and safe "cancel" mechanism.

    As with NewsWatcher, by simply changing the user information
    in the Prefs dialog box, the user may cancel posts made by
    others.

13. Respecting the 80-character line-length convention.

    Nuntius defaults to breaking lines at 75 characters, and seems
    to have some degree of sophistication about when not to break
    quoted text, much to its credit.  Text editing is done with an
    external program.

14. Preventing obvious user errors.

    Nuntius does not warn the user when either a blank article or
    an article consisting entirely of quoted text is posted.

Additional notes:

Like many other PC and Macintosh newsreader, Nuntius does not
attempt to authenticate the e-mail address you give it.

The default distribution in a Nuntius article is "world," even if
it is a followup to a previous article with a different
distribution!  This is not addressed specifically in RFC 1036 or
in the Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval, but is unwise behavior
nevertheless.

------------------------------

CHECKLIST:

Req Itm                                          Sub-    Item
rd? ##  Description                            item OK?   OK?     Notes

Y    1  Display all essential header info                 NO        *
  Y       default is to display                   NO
  Y       a) display author                       YES
  Y       b) display subject                      YES
  Y       c) display newsgroups list              NO
  Y       d) display Followup-To list             NO
  Y       e) display Reply-To if /= From:         NO

Y    2  Provide standard commands                         YES
  Y       clear                                   YES
  Y       separate                                YES
  Y       a) post a new article                   YES
  Y       b) post a followup article              YES
  Y       c) reply by email                       YES
  N       use standard terminology                YES

Y    3  Implement cross-posting                           YES
  Y       allow user specification                YES
  Y       cross-post (not multi-post)             YES

Y    4  Change essential headers                          NO
  Y       change headers while editing body       NO                *
  Y       change Subject                          NO
  Y       allow at least 70 chars in subject      NO
  Y       change Newsgroups                       NO
  Y       change Followup-To                      NO
  Y       allow followup-to: poster               NO
  Y       change Reply-To                         NO

Y    5  Correct Subject headers in flwup/rply             NO	    *
  Y       a) prepend "Re: " (exactly!)            NO
  Y       b) preserve entire Subject              YES
  Y          even subjects > 80 chars long        YES

Y    6  Respect Followup-To                               NO
  Y       use to initialize Newsgroups: in flwup  NO
  Y       recognize and act on 'poster'           NO

Y    7  Followups contain References                      YES
  Y       contains message-id of original         YES
  Y       never truncate individual message-id    YES
  N       contains three Refs from original       NO
  N       contains entire Refs of original        NO
  N       contains any id mentioned in body       NO

Y    8  Direct email reply to Reply-To                    YES

Y    9  Quotation and attribution                         YES
  Y       provide method                          YES
  Y       set off by prepend                      YES
  Y       attribution line                        YES
  Y         identifies author                     YES
  N         gives message-id                      YES

Y   10  Subject is mandatory                              NO
  Y       do not post empty or provide <none>     NO
  Y       allow change while editing body         NO

Y   11  Must provide valid From: header                   NO        *
  Y       syntactically valid                     NO
  N       belongs to the user                     NO

Y   12  Must provide cancel                               NO        *
  Y       of own articles                         YES
  Y       *not* of others                         NO

N   13  Respect line length, and post WYSIWYG             NO        *
  N       line brks shown are present when posted NO
  N       do *not* post paragraph w/o line brks   YES
  N       warn if body has lines > 80 chars       NO
  N       external editor conforms                NO

N   14  Prevent obvious errors                            NO	    *
  N       prevent posting empty article           NO
  N       prevent posting only quoted text        NO

-- 
Unsolicited commercial electronic mail sent to this address will be
proofread at a cost of $200/hour (one half-hour minimum).