I don't think Keywords: is a major problem, but the big users of this
one are people dealing with NetNews. Would any of the NetNews folks care to
comment on this?
The Keywords: header is basically pretty useless in news, because there
is no way to get people to dependably put useful information in it.
I greatly doubt that there is any current news software that relies on
its contents in any significant way, so I would predict that alterations
to its format would cause no great pain.
By "headers" I propose that this apply to the Subject: header, the Comments:
header, and the Content-Description: header. The NetNews folks may wish
to list additional headers -- I want to hear that from them...
We have Organization: and Summary: lines that likewise are free-form text
(and likewise pose no significant software-compatibility issues that I
can see). I don't see any compelling need to list them in an 822 upgrade,
though; as with any application that uses an enriched 822 format, there
has to be a defining document for the news format and it can list such
additions.
(In case people are curious, the defining document for news -- RFC 1036 --
is also due for a revision. I'm working on a draft intended as an input
and starting point for that process. My feeling -- shared, I think, by
most everyone who would be involved -- is that son-of-1036's position on
things like 8-bit character sets should be mostly "see son-of-822; what
it says applies to us too".)
Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
henry(_at_)zoo(_dot_)toronto(_dot_)edu utzoo!henry