INTERNET-DRAFT                               Charles H. Lindsey
Usenet Format Working Group                  University of Manchester
                                             July 2001

7.1.2. Application/news-groupinfo

7.1.2.  Application/news-groupinfo
   The "application/news-groupinfo" body part contains brief information
   about a newsgroup, i.e. the group's name, it's newsgroup-description
   and the moderation-flag.

        NOTE: The presence of the newsgroups-tag "For your newsgroups
        file:" is intended to make the whole newgroup message compatible
        with current practice as described in [Son-of-1036].

   The MIME content type definition of "application/news-groupinfo" is:

   MIME type name:           application
   MIME subtype name:        news-groupinfo
   Required parameters:      none
   Disposition:              by default, inline
   Encoding considerations:  "7bit" or "8bit" is sufficient and MUST be
                             used to maintain compatibility.
   Security considerations:  this type MUST NOT be used except as part
                             of a control message for the creation or
                             modification of a Netnews newsgroup
   Published specification:  [USEFOR]


   The content of the "application/news-groupinfo" body part is defined
   as:

      groupinfo-body      = [ newsgroups-tag CRLF ]
                               1*( newsgroups-line CRLF )
      newsgroups-tag      = %x46.6F.72 SP %x79.6F.75.72 SP
                               %x6E.65.77.73.67.72.6F.75.70.73 SP
                               %x66.69.6C.65.3A
                               ; case sensitive
                               ; "For your newsgroups file:"
      newsgroups-line     = newsgroup-name
                               [ 1*HTAB newsgroup-description ]
                               [ 1*WSP moderation-flag ]
      newsgroup-description
                          = 1*( [WSP] utext)
      moderation-flag     = %x28.4D.6F.64.65.72.61.74.65.64.29
                               ; case sensitive "(Moderated)"
   The whole groupinfo-body is intended to be interpreted as a text
   written in the UTF-8 character set.

   The "application/news-groupinfo" is used in conjunction with the
   "newgroup" (7.1) and "mvgroup" (7.3) control messages.  The
   newsgroup-name(s) in the newsgroups-line MUST agree with the
   newsgroup-name(s) in the "newgroup" or "mvgroup" control message (and
   thus there cannot be more than a single newsgroups-line except in the
   case of a "mvgroup" control message affecting a whole
   (sub)hierarchy).  The Content-Type "application/news-groupinfo" MUST
   NOT be used except as a part of such control messages.  Although
   optional, the newsgroups-tag SHOULD be included until such time as
   this standard has been widely adopted, to ensure compatibility with
   present practice.

   Moderated newsgroups MUST be marked by appending the case sensitive
   text " (Moderated)" at the end. It is NOT recommended that the
   moderator's email address be included in the newsgroup-description as
   has sometimes been done.

   Although, in accordance with [RFC 2822] and section 4.5 of this
   standard, a newsgroups-line could have a maximum length of 998
   octets, as a matter of policy a far lower limit, expressed in
   characters, Ought to be set. The current convention is to limit its
   length so that the newsgroup-name, the HTAB(s) (interpreted as 8-
   character tabs that takes one at least to column 24) and the
   newsgroup-description (excluding any moderation-flag) fit into 79
   characters.  However, this standard does not seek to enforce any such
   rule, and reading agents SHOULD therefore enable a newsgroups-line of
   any length to be displayed, e.g. by wrapping it as required.

        NOTE: The newsgroups-line is intended to provide a brief
        description of the newsgroup, written in the UTF-8 character
        set.  Since newsgroup-names are required to be expressed in
        UTF-8 when they appear in headers, and since [NNTP] requires the
        use of UTF-8 when such a description is transmitted by the LIST
        NEWSGROUPS command, it would also be convenient for servers that
        keep a "newsgroups" file to store them in that form, so as to
        avoid unnecessary conversions.

Diffs to previous draft

--- {draft-04}	Wed Jul 11 21:56:01 2001
+++ {draft-05}	Wed Jul 11 21:56:02 2001
@@ -20,11 +20,10 @@
                              modification of a Netnews newsgroup
    Published specification:  [USEFOR]
 
+
    The content of the "application/news-groupinfo" body part is defined
    as:
 
-
-
       groupinfo-body      = [ newsgroups-tag CRLF ]
                                1*( newsgroups-line CRLF )
       newsgroups-tag      = %x46.6F.72 SP %x79.6F.75.72 SP
@@ -59,7 +58,7 @@
    moderator's email address be included in the newsgroup-description as
    has sometimes been done.
 
-   Although, in accordance with [MESSFOR] and section 4.5 of this
+   Although, in accordance with [RFC 2822] and section 4.5 of this
    standard, a newsgroups-line could have a maximum length of 998
    octets, as a matter of policy a far lower limit, expressed in
    characters, Ought to be set. The current convention is to limit its
@@ -78,4 +77,6 @@
         NEWSGROUPS command, it would also be convenient for servers that
         keep a "newsgroups" file to store them in that form, so as to
         avoid unnecessary conversions.
+
+