From: shrdlu@earthlink.net
Newsgroups: news.admin.misc,news.misc
Subject: GNKS/A Review of Internet in a Box (AIR News) Newsreader
Date: 6 Feb 1995 01:01:19 GMT
Organization: Blocks World
Message-ID: <3h3scv$6ju@moon.earthlink.net>
Reply-To: shrdlu@willow.sdd.trw.com

This is an evaluation of the AIR News (from SPRY) Usenet interface (aka newsreader) with
respect to

   The "Good Net-Keeping Seal of Approval" for Usenet Software
   by Ron Newman   <rnewman@media.mit.edu>
   Revision 1.2 -- January 9, 1995

which has been referred to as the GNKSA/U. The text from the Good Net-Keeping
document is not quoted because that would make this evaluation difficult to follow and
almost impossible to scan quickly. Please refer to the original document for further
explanation. It was posted to these same newsgroups on 9 Jan 1995. It can also be
obtained via the WWW (no ftp) at

  http://www.media.mit.edu/people/rnewman/Good_Netkeeping_Seal

and should be posted to news.answers in the near future.

The format followed here was previously established in a review of AOL.

The item numbers are keyed to the GNKSA/U (last modified on January 9, 1995). The first
column indicates whether the item is required (as opposed to merely strongly recommended)
by the GNKSA/U.

The version of the AIR News newsreader being evaluated is the one put into production as an
update to the product Internet in a Box, which was available to IBOX users in mid-January as
an update to software purchased previously. This evaluation was done using a 486/66 PC
clone, under MS Windows 3.1. (The first column shows whether an item is required, or
suggested - MUST as opposed to SHOULD.)

Req.   Item  Description                      Subitem  Item  Notes
(Y/N)  ##                                     (Y/N)    (Y/N)

Y       1    Display all essential header               N
               information
Y            default is to display             N              1
Y            a) display author                 Y
Y            b) display subject                Y
Y            c) display newsgroups list        Y
Y            d) display Followup-To list       Y
Y            e) display Reply-To if /= From:   N

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

Y       3    Implement cross-posting                    N
Y            allow user specification          N              2
Y            cross-post (not multi-post)       Y

Y       4    Change essential headers                   N
Y            change headers while editing body N              3
Y            change Subject                    Y
Y            allow at least 70 characters in   Y
               the subject
Y            change Newsgroups                 Y
Y            change Followup-To                Y
Y            allow followup-to: poster         Y
Y            change Reply-To                   Y

Y       5    Correct Subject headers in                 Y
               follow-ups and replies
Y            a) prepend "Re: " (exactly!)      Y
Y            b) preserve entire Subject        Y
Y            even subjects 80 characters long  Y

Y       6    Respect Followup-To                        N     4
Y            use it to initialize Newsgroups:  N
               in follow ups
Y            recognize and act on 'poster'     N

Y       7    Followups contain References               Y
Y            contains message-id of original   Y
Y            never truncate individual         Y
               message-id
N            contains three Refs from original N              5
N            contains entire Refs of original  N
N            contains any id mentioned in body N

Y       8    Direct email reply to Reply-To             N     6

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

Y      10    Subject is mandatory                       Y
Y            do not post an empty subject, or  Y
               provide <none>
Y            allow change while editing body   Y

Y      11    Must provide valid From: header            Y
Y            syntactically valid               Y
N            belongs to the user               Y

Y      12    Must provide cancel                        N     7
Y            of own articles                   N
Y            *not* of others                   Y

N      13    Respect line length, and post WYSIWYG      N
N            line breaks shown are present     Y
               when posted
N            do *not* post paragraph without   Y
               line breaks
N            warn if body has lines  80 chars  N              8
N            external editor conforms          N

N      14    Prevent obvious errors                     Y
N            prevent posting empty article     Y
N            prevent posting only quoted text  N/A            9


Note 1: The IBOX/Spry newsreader offers the option of displaying any or all of the headers
at the top, or no headers, but the default is no headers, in violation of the GNKSA/U.

Note 2: While users may originate articles that cross-post to multiple groups correctly,
when following up to previously posted articles, the only thing in the Newsgroups: line is
the current newsgroup being read. This is also true with respect to Followup-to: lines (see
note 4 below).

Note 3: IBOX does pretty good with this category, but it's still necessary to click on a
Header button in order to change the headers.

Note 4: The IBOX newsreader is clueless in this particular category. The only way that a
user could use the Followup-to: poster field is to cut and paste from the post that is being
replied to.

Note 5: I have no idea how the IBOX newsreader maintains threading capability, since it
never keeps more that one article reference. Of course, it is probably taking advantage of
other compliant newsreaders to build up threads.

Note 6: The Reply-to: header is available if you are trying to post (and works well, since
I used it within misc.test to redirect replies to my account at work), but is completely
ignored for replying to posts from others (and is also invisible in the available headers).

Note 7: I think that any newsreader that does not allow users to cancel their own
messages is broken, brain-dead, and ought to be shot on sight. It means that the only
possiblity of cancelling messages is forgery, and there's enough of that going around as
it is.

Note 8: While lines are kept as short as the window you're typing in, there is absolutely no
check to ensure that they are under 80 characters. I also wish that it wouldn't show brain-
damaged MicroSoft Word characters as being ok, when the rest of the net sees them as
control characters. (Quotes, both single and double are especially bad.)

Note 9: I couldn't test this, since my service provider has a check on it. Now if I could just
prevail upon Earthlink to write an AUP that would counsel folks against spamming, life
would be good.

Lynda L. True

--
It's reported that Canter & Siegel search for and archive all articles
that contain their names or "Green Card".  This .sig is to help them.
I boycott companies that use mass advertising on Usenet (Usenet != Internet)
shrdlu@earthlink.net (work: shrdlu@willow.sdd.trw.com)