Re: I spoke with Marc from the postgresql mailing list.

On Monday, in article
<tskirvin(dot)20041115160809$4f2c(at)cairo(dot)ks(dot)uiuc(dot)edu>
tskirvin(at)killfile(dot)org "Tim Skirvin" wrote:

> bhk(at)dsl(dot)co(dot)uk (Brian {Hamilton Kelly}) writes:
>
> >(Personally, I blame the original authors of Netscape for incorporating a
> >news "reader" that could access multiple servers. Before then, most
> >readers of news had no option other than to read ALL their desired
> >newsgroups from ONE server, that of their university/employer/ISP. Since
> >that capability appeared in Netscape, and other browser/newsreaders,
> >there has been a proliferation of *really* private newsgroups, such as
> >borland.*; even microsoft.* was originally only available from one
> >"site".)
>
> I've been involved in private newsgroup hierarchies since about
> 1996. They exist, they're useful, and they're important. I've written
> code to let me use my own newsreader with multiple servers for just such a
> reason.
>
> I firmly believe that there should be a better standard for
> newsgroup names that includes (the|a) server you can access it through.

Hmm; what about RFC1738:

3.7. NNTP

The nntp URL scheme is an alternative method of referencing news
articles, useful for specifying news articles from NNTP servers (RFC
977).

A nntp URL take the form:

nntp://<host>:<port>/<newsgroup-name>/<article-number>

where <host> and <port> are as described in Section 3.1. If :<port>
is omitted, the port defaults to 119.

The <newsgroup-name> is the name of the group, while the <article-
number> is the numeric id of the article within that newsgroup.

Note that while nntp: URLs specify a unique location for the article
resource, most NNTP servers currently on the Internet today are
configured only to allow access from local clients, and thus nntp
URLs do not designate globally accessible resources. Thus, the news:
form of URL is preferred as a way of identifying news articles.

Mind you, IME there are few browsers masquerading as newsreaders that
understand the <news:Message-ID> form of URL, so the likelihood of
finding one that bothers to interpret nntp: is minimal.

--
Brian {Hamilton Kelly} bhk(at)dsl(dot)co(dot)uk
"I don't use Linux. I prefer to use an OS supported by a large multi-
national vendor, with a good office suite, excellent network/internet
software and decent hardware support."