Cross-posting

During the recent cross/multi-posting controversy I discovered that my
Thunderbird wasn't handling cross-posting properly. It didn't appear to
be marking as read in other groups. I've now updated to version 24 (I'll
have to send this quickly before they turn out another version :-) ).
I'm cross-posting this into alt.comp.os.windows-8. Then I can put it to
the test.

I'd appreciate comments from other Tbird users; and other newsreaders as
well. I'm getting a bit fed up with Tbird.

Ed

Ed Cryer wrote:
During the recent cross/multi-posting controversy I discovered that my
Thunderbird wasn't handling cross-posting properly. It didn't appear to
be marking as read in other groups. I've now updated to version 24 (I'll
have to send this quickly before they turn out another version :-) ).
I'm cross-posting this into alt.comp.os.windows-8. Then I can put it to
the test.

I'd appreciate comments from other Tbird users; and other newsreaders as
well. I'm getting a bit fed up with Tbird.

Ed

No, it didn't work. I had to read and mark them separately.

Ed

Ed Cryer wrote:
During the recent cross/multi-posting controversy I discovered that my
Thunderbird wasn't handling cross-posting properly. It didn't appear to
be marking as read in other groups. I've now updated to version 24 (I'll
have to send this quickly before they turn out another version :-) ).
I'm cross-posting this into alt.comp.os.windows-8. Then I can put it to
the test.

I'd appreciate comments from other Tbird users; and other newsreaders as
well. I'm getting a bit fed up with Tbird.

If I mark a cross-post as read in one group, it's only marked as read in
that group, but then again, I'm still using 2.0.24, as I don't like
anything they've done to it since.

And before anyone says "But that's a terribly old and insecure version",
I've not had even a hint of problems using it. Maybe because I run a
real time malware and virus suite, as well as a decent firewall, and
don't open suspicious links.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.

Ed Cryer wrote:

During the recent cross/multi-posting controversy I discovered that my
Thunderbird wasn't handling cross-posting properly. It didn't appear to
be marking as read in other groups. I've now updated to version 24 (I'll
have to send this quickly before they turn out another version :-) ).
I'm cross-posting this into alt.comp.os.windows-8. Then I can put it to
the test.

I'd appreciate comments from other Tbird users; and other newsreaders as
well. I'm getting a bit fed up with Tbird.

Unlikely an OS issue. For questions on an NNTP client, ask about it in
the appropriate newsgroups. Rather than post in an unrelated newsgroup,
post in one(s) that focus on your topic.

Newsreaders are discussed in:

news.software.readers

Thunderbird, a Mozilla product, is discussed in:

mozilla.support.thunderbird
(they don't peer to Usenet so connect to news.mozilla.org)

If you multi-post then obviously no newsreader will mark your same post
as read in the other newsgroups as each got its own Message-ID value.
Marking as read in other newsgroups means the same MID is used for each.
So Thunderbird should work to mark as read in other newsgroups when you
*cross*-post.

Are you cross-posting? Check the MID header in each copy in the other
newsgroups to make sure it is the same when you cross-post. Maybe you
are multi-posting instead of cross-posting. Cross-posting means the
server only has 1 copy of your article stored without pointers to it in
the newsgroups to which you cross-posted. Multi-posting means you
submitted a separate copy to each newsgroup. Cross-posting means 1 copy
of your article with pointers in multiple RELATED newsgroups.
Multi-posting means N copies of your article at every peered server (a
waste of space and bandwidth) and is used to shotgun your post across
unrelated newsgroups (i.e., you don't know where to ask or are willfully
attempting to cull responses from disparate communities).

I only trialed Tbird a couple years ago just before an upgrade that
added a rule that let you test on any header without which its rule set
was weaker than those available in Outlook Express. I don't use Tbird.
The folks in the above mentioned related newsgroups may assist.

Ed Cryer wrote:

Ed Cryer wrote:

During the recent cross/multi-posting controversy I discovered that my
Thunderbird wasn't handling cross-posting properly. It didn't appear to
be marking as read in other groups. I've now updated to version 24 (I'll
have to send this quickly before they turn out another version :-) ).
I'm cross-posting this into alt.comp.os.windows-8. Then I can put it to
the test.

I'd appreciate comments from other Tbird users; and other newsreaders as
well. I'm getting a bit fed up with Tbird.

No, it didn't work. I had to read and mark them separately.

One of TB's weaknesses, I'm afraid.

Ed Cryer wrote:

I've now updated to version 24 (I'll
have to send this quickly before they turn out another version :-)

Actually it's the first major version since 17.0, mentally I wasn't
expecting a new TB until the one to correspond with FF26, I must be
misremembering.

Thankfully few "improvements" but it seems to have knobbled the
CompactHeader add-on, I no longer see the little [-] or [+] icons in the
header area.

Andy Burns wrote:

Thankfully few "improvements" but it seems to have knobbled the
CompactHeader add-on, I no longer see the little [-] or [+] icons in the
header area.

Fixed by CompactHeader 2.0.8 why didn't it disable/recommend an upgrade
during the plugin compatibility check?

An odd grey stripe appears to have slipped in down the left hand side of
the message pane.

VanguardLH wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:

During the recent cross/multi-posting controversy I discovered that my
Thunderbird wasn't handling cross-posting properly. It didn't appear to
be marking as read in other groups. I've now updated to version 24 (I'll
have to send this quickly before they turn out another version :-) ).
I'm cross-posting this into alt.comp.os.windows-8. Then I can put it to
the test.

I'd appreciate comments from other Tbird users; and other newsreaders as
well. I'm getting a bit fed up with Tbird.

Unlikely an OS issue. For questions on an NNTP client, ask about it in
the appropriate newsgroups. Rather than post in an unrelated newsgroup,
post in one(s) that focus on your topic.

Newsreaders are discussed in:

news.software.readers

Thunderbird, a Mozilla product, is discussed in:

mozilla.support.thunderbird
(they don't peer to Usenet so connect to news.mozilla.org)

If you multi-post then obviously no newsreader will mark your same post
as read in the other newsgroups as each got its own Message-ID value.
Marking as read in other newsgroups means the same MID is used for each.
So Thunderbird should work to mark as read in other newsgroups when you
*cross*-post.

Are you cross-posting? Check the MID header in each copy in the other
newsgroups to make sure it is the same when you cross-post. Maybe you
are multi-posting instead of cross-posting. Cross-posting means the
server only has 1 copy of your article stored without pointers to it in
the newsgroups to which you cross-posted. Multi-posting means you
submitted a separate copy to each newsgroup. Cross-posting means 1 copy
of your article with pointers in multiple RELATED newsgroups.
Multi-posting means N copies of your article at every peered server (a
waste of space and bandwidth) and is used to shotgun your post across
unrelated newsgroups (i.e., you don't know where to ask or are willfully
attempting to cull responses from disparate communities).

I only trialed Tbird a couple years ago just before an upgrade that
added a rule that let you test on any header without which its rule set
was weaker than those available in Outlook Express. I don't use Tbird.
The folks in the above mentioned related newsgroups may assist.


Well now, I think a few of us here owe an apology to Sfxxx.
I cross-posted, and here are some lines from each header.
N.B. same message ID.
Conclusion; a Tbird user can't distinguish between a message cross-p'd
and one multi-p'd.

Newsgroups: alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-8
Subject: Cross-posting
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 12:40:24 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 11
Message-ID:



Newsgroups: alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-8
Subject: Cross-posting
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 12:40:24 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 11
Message-ID:
(Win8 group)

Does your 40tude_Dialog/2.0.15.41 handle them differently?

Ed

John Williamson wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
During the recent cross/multi-posting controversy I discovered that my
Thunderbird wasn't handling cross-posting properly. It didn't appear
to be marking as read in other groups. I've now updated to version 24
(I'll have to send this quickly before they turn out another version
:-) ).
I'm cross-posting this into alt.comp.os.windows-8. Then I can put it
to the test.

I'd appreciate comments from other Tbird users; and other newsreaders
as well. I'm getting a bit fed up with Tbird.

If I mark a cross-post as read in one group, it's only marked as read in
that group, but then again, I'm still using 2.0.24, as I don't like
anything they've done to it since.

And before anyone says "But that's a terribly old and insecure version",
I've not had even a hint of problems using it. Maybe because I run a
real time malware and virus suite, as well as a decent firewall, and
don't open suspicious links.


Old versions of Tbird can be got here;
http://www.oldapps.com/thunderbird.php

Which one would you recommend?

Ed

Ed Cryer wrote:
John Williamson wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:
During the recent cross/multi-posting controversy I discovered that my
Thunderbird wasn't handling cross-posting properly. It didn't appear
to be marking as read in other groups. I've now updated to version 24
(I'll have to send this quickly before they turn out another version
:-) ).
I'm cross-posting this into alt.comp.os.windows-8. Then I can put it
to the test.

I'd appreciate comments from other Tbird users; and other newsreaders
as well. I'm getting a bit fed up with Tbird.

If I mark a cross-post as read in one group, it's only marked as read in
that group, but then again, I'm still using 2.0.24, as I don't like
anything they've done to it since.

And before anyone says "But that's a terribly old and insecure version",
I've not had even a hint of problems using it. Maybe because I run a
real time malware and virus suite, as well as a decent firewall, and
don't open suspicious links.


Old versions of Tbird can be got here;
http://www.oldapps.com/thunderbird.php

Which one would you recommend?

As I posted up ^ there, I use 2.0.24. This is only because I like the
user interface and it does what I want. In my opinion, it's been going
downhill as far as usability is concerned ever since, although the
filtering on usenet has improved.

YMMV, and a lot of people just use the latest version as fed to them by
the updater, though I'd recommend staying with the Extended Support
versions unless you like lots of changes for no apparent reason.


--
Tciao for Now!

John.

Ed Cryer wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:

During the recent cross/multi-posting controversy I discovered that my
Thunderbird wasn't handling cross-posting properly. It didn't appear to
be marking as read in other groups. I've now updated to version 24 (I'll
have to send this quickly before they turn out another version :-) ).
I'm cross-posting this into alt.comp.os.windows-8. Then I can put it to
the test.

I'd appreciate comments from other Tbird users; and other newsreaders as
well. I'm getting a bit fed up with Tbird.

Unlikely an OS issue. For questions on an NNTP client, ask about it in
the appropriate newsgroups. Rather than post in an unrelated newsgroup,
post in one(s) that focus on your topic.

Newsreaders are discussed in:

news.software.readers

Thunderbird, a Mozilla product, is discussed in:

mozilla.support.thunderbird
(they don't peer to Usenet so connect to news.mozilla.org)

If you multi-post then obviously no newsreader will mark your same post
as read in the other newsgroups as each got its own Message-ID value.
Marking as read in other newsgroups means the same MID is used for each.
So Thunderbird should work to mark as read in other newsgroups when you
*cross*-post.

Are you cross-posting? Check the MID header in each copy in the other
newsgroups to make sure it is the same when you cross-post. Maybe you
are multi-posting instead of cross-posting. Cross-posting means the
server only has 1 copy of your article stored without pointers to it in
the newsgroups to which you cross-posted. Multi-posting means you
submitted a separate copy to each newsgroup. Cross-posting means 1 copy
of your article with pointers in multiple RELATED newsgroups.
Multi-posting means N copies of your article at every peered server (a
waste of space and bandwidth) and is used to shotgun your post across
unrelated newsgroups (i.e., you don't know where to ask or are willfully
attempting to cull responses from disparate communities).

I only trialed Tbird a couple years ago just before an upgrade that
added a rule that let you test on any header without which its rule set
was weaker than those available in Outlook Express. I don't use Tbird.
The folks in the above mentioned related newsgroups may assist.


Well now, I think a few of us here owe an apology to Sfxxx.
I cross-posted, and here are some lines from each header.
N.B. same message ID.
Conclusion; a Tbird user can't distinguish between a message cross-p'd
and one multi-p'd.

Newsgroups: alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-8
Subject: Cross-posting
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 12:40:24 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 11
Message-ID:

Newsgroups: alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-8
Subject: Cross-posting
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 12:40:24 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 11
Message-ID:
(Win8 group)

Does your 40tude_Dialog/2.0.15.41 handle them differently?

Ed

I don't know which NNTP servers you are using.

For alt.windows7.general, I'm using Albasani.
For alt.comp.os.windows-8, I'm using Eternal-September.

Cross-posting recognition is within a server, not across them. So, in
my case, cross-posting recognition won't work in my choice of NNTP
client (40tude Dialog) because the cross-posting was across different
servers.

I'm pretty sure cross-posting recognition requires the 1 copy of a post
to be on the same server. That's because the overview database for each
has its own article ID. That is, a post on one NNTP server will have a
different article ID than the same post submitted to a different NNTP
server.

Sorry, it must not be the MID that lets the client know it's the same
article in multiple newsgroups. It must be the article ID assigned to
that one copy of the article with multiple pointer to it by the SAME
server. Alas, my NNTP client doesn't show me the article ID for an
article (I suspect most don't and having to wade through a log file or
use telnet to manually issue the NNTP commands isn't something I'm going
to expend the effort).

I can see why MID might not be used to equate the articles since clients
are permitted to specify their own MIDs. The server has 1 copy of an
*article* with pointers to it in each cross-posted newsgroup. That's
how it's managed up on the server. So the client would have to follow
the same procedure. Peering between NNTP servers does NOT use the same
article ID at every server. The MID stays the same (unless there is a
conflict with client-generated MIDs that the server has to correct or
reject) but each server has its own overview and articles database, so
each server has its own article IDs independently of all other servers.

Personally I would prefer all NNTP servers to discard any MID header
inserted by the client and instead insert the server's own MID header.
It would help eliminate forgeries or other malicious use of that header.
Clients don't need to generate their own MIDs. There has been the
excuse that some users like to generate their own MIDs so they can
define rules to identify their own posts but then using a static nym
(name & e-mail address) and not bouncing around servers would accomplish
the same task. Their client generated MID is no more safe from
forgeries or malicious use than using a constant nym.

So upon your reply and my reflection on mine, I'm sure I was wrong
thinking it was the MID that identified the same [pointer to an] article
when cross-posted. Using the same article ID used by the server makes
better sense and would more reliably identifying the same article in
each cross-posted newsgroup. But article IDs are unique to the server.

When your client finds articles, it does so within newsgroups. It
doesn't get articles and then find in which newsgroups they belong.
It's been awhile since I dug into the RFCs for NNTP but my recollection
is your client issued a "GROUP group" to first pick a newsgroup and
then it did a "LISTGROUP [group [range]]" command to get articles within
that group. The server is doling out article IDs by group. While the
server knows it is providing the same article in LISTGROUP commands for
different GROUPs, there is no parameter in its output showing that an
article is multiply associated with other GROUPs. So it's up to the
client to track that by monitoring the article IDs. If the client sees
the same article ID (which should be unique in the overview and articles
databases) in different GROUPs then it knows it was cross-posted. So
the client tracks by article IDs (not MIDS as I previous supposed).

Every server creates and manages its own databases so article IDs are
unique to the server. That's why, for example, when you use multiple
servers for the same newsgroups that your client won't know there are
duplicate posts (cross-posted) because the article IDs will be different
on each server.

A client tracking by article ID makes a lot more sense than tracking by
Message-ID header. Tracking of a cross-posted article is seeing where
the 1 copy of an article on a server is associated to which newsgroups.

I prefer using Albasani as my primary NNTP server because their
retention period is longer than Eternal-September's. ES was also doing
too much putzing around when they moved from Motzarella and then there
were disk problems later so I stuck with Albasani. When you cross-
posted between alt.windows7.general and alt.comp.os.windows-8, where you
submitting to the same NNTP server? If so then the client should see
the same article ID at the one NNTP server getting listed by GROUP
commands for different newsgroups. Even if you did cross-post to
newsgroups at the same NNTP server, my client is still accessing 2
different NNTP servers for those newsgroups so it would see 2 different
article IDs from each.

With me using Albasani for alt.windows7.general and reading this
cross-posted article for your reply to me there, I see the following
header:

alt.comp.os.windows-8:6181

When I look in alt.comp.os.windows-8 at your reply but I'm using
Eternal-September for that newsgroup, I see:

alt.comp.os.windows-8:6472

Maybe those are the article numbers after the colon. If so then
different servers have different article IDs for the same post but
that's to be expected with them independently managing their own
databases. At Albasani, the Windows7 copy of the article is identified
by 85140. At ES, the Windows7 copy of the article is assigned 84621.
Different article IDs so the client can't be sure they are the same
article across different servers. I suppose an NNTP client could
attempt to use the MID header as a secondary means of associating cross-
posted article except that clients are allowed to create their own MIDs.

RFC 5536 defines NetNews Article Format and where I found the Xref
header defined. See:

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5536#page-24

So part of the Xref header is to show the article number from the
server. Since Albasani, my server for the Windows7 newsgroup, has
different article numbers for your articles than ES, my server for the
Windows8 newsgroup, then my client can't see they are the same article.

Which server are you using for the alt.windows7.general newsgroup?
Which server are you using for the alt.os.comp.os.windows-8 newsgroup?

VanguardLH wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote:

During the recent cross/multi-posting controversy I discovered that my
Thunderbird wasn't handling cross-posting properly. It didn't appear to
be marking as read in other groups. I've now updated to version 24 (I'll
have to send this quickly before they turn out another version :-) ).
I'm cross-posting this into alt.comp.os.windows-8. Then I can put it to
the test.

I'd appreciate comments from other Tbird users; and other newsreaders as
well. I'm getting a bit fed up with Tbird.

Unlikely an OS issue. For questions on an NNTP client, ask about it in
the appropriate newsgroups. Rather than post in an unrelated newsgroup,
post in one(s) that focus on your topic.

Newsreaders are discussed in:

news.software.readers

Thunderbird, a Mozilla product, is discussed in:

mozilla.support.thunderbird
(they don't peer to Usenet so connect to news.mozilla.org)

If you multi-post then obviously no newsreader will mark your same post
as read in the other newsgroups as each got its own Message-ID value.
Marking as read in other newsgroups means the same MID is used for each.
So Thunderbird should work to mark as read in other newsgroups when you
*cross*-post.

Are you cross-posting? Check the MID header in each copy in the other
newsgroups to make sure it is the same when you cross-post. Maybe you
are multi-posting instead of cross-posting. Cross-posting means the
server only has 1 copy of your article stored without pointers to it in
the newsgroups to which you cross-posted. Multi-posting means you
submitted a separate copy to each newsgroup. Cross-posting means 1 copy
of your article with pointers in multiple RELATED newsgroups.
Multi-posting means N copies of your article at every peered server (a
waste of space and bandwidth) and is used to shotgun your post across
unrelated newsgroups (i.e., you don't know where to ask or are willfully
attempting to cull responses from disparate communities).

I only trialed Tbird a couple years ago just before an upgrade that
added a rule that let you test on any header without which its rule set
was weaker than those available in Outlook Express. I don't use Tbird.
The folks in the above mentioned related newsgroups may assist.


Well now, I think a few of us here owe an apology to Sfxxx.
I cross-posted, and here are some lines from each header.
N.B. same message ID.
Conclusion; a Tbird user can't distinguish between a message cross-p'd
and one multi-p'd.

Newsgroups: alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-8
Subject: Cross-posting
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 12:40:24 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 11
Message-ID:

Newsgroups: alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-8
Subject: Cross-posting
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 12:40:24 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
Lines: 11
Message-ID:
(Win8 group)

Does your 40tude_Dialog/2.0.15.41 handle them differently?

Ed

I don't know which NNTP servers you are using.

For alt.windows7.general, I'm using Albasani.
For alt.comp.os.windows-8, I'm using Eternal-September.

Cross-posting recognition is within a server, not across them. So, in
my case, cross-posting recognition won't work in my choice of NNTP
client (40tude Dialog) because the cross-posting was across different
servers.

I'm pretty sure cross-posting recognition requires the 1 copy of a post
to be on the same server. That's because the overview database for each
has its own article ID. That is, a post on one NNTP server will have a
different article ID than the same post submitted to a different NNTP
server.

Sorry, it must not be the MID that lets the client know it's the same
article in multiple newsgroups. It must be the article ID assigned to
that one copy of the article with multiple pointer to it by the SAME
server. Alas, my NNTP client doesn't show me the article ID for an
article (I suspect most don't and having to wade through a log file or
use telnet to manually issue the NNTP commands isn't something I'm going
to expend the effort).

I can see why MID might not be used to equate the articles since clients
are permitted to specify their own MIDs. The server has 1 copy of an
*article* with pointers to it in each cross-posted newsgroup. That's
how it's managed up on the server. So the client would have to follow
the same procedure. Peering between NNTP servers does NOT use the same
article ID at every server. The MID stays the same (unless there is a
conflict with client-generated MIDs that the server has to correct or
reject) but each server has its own overview and articles database, so
each server has its own article IDs independently of all other servers.

Personally I would prefer all NNTP servers to discard any MID header
inserted by the client and instead insert the server's own MID header.
It would help eliminate forgeries or other malicious use of that header.
Clients don't need to generate their own MIDs. There has been the
excuse that some users like to generate their own MIDs so they can
define rules to identify their own posts but then using a static nym
(name & e-mail address) and not bouncing around servers would accomplish
the same task. Their client generated MID is no more safe from
forgeries or malicious use than using a constant nym.

So upon your reply and my reflection on mine, I'm sure I was wrong
thinking it was the MID that identified the same [pointer to an] article
when cross-posted. Using the same article ID used by the server makes
better sense and would more reliably identifying the same article in
each cross-posted newsgroup. But article IDs are unique to the server.

When your client finds articles, it does so within newsgroups. It
doesn't get articles and then find in which newsgroups they belong.
It's been awhile since I dug into the RFCs for NNTP but my recollection
is your client issued a "GROUP group" to first pick a newsgroup and
then it did a "LISTGROUP [group [range]]" command to get articles within
that group. The server is doling out article IDs by group. While the
server knows it is providing the same article in LISTGROUP commands for
different GROUPs, there is no parameter in its output showing that an
article is multiply associated with other GROUPs. So it's up to the
client to track that by monitoring the article IDs. If the client sees
the same article ID (which should be unique in the overview and articles
databases) in different GROUPs then it knows it was cross-posted. So
the client tracks by article IDs (not MIDS as I previous supposed).

Every server creates and manages its own databases so article IDs are
unique to the server. That's why, for example, when you use multiple
servers for the same newsgroups that your client won't know there are
duplicate posts (cross-posted) because the article IDs will be different
on each server.

A client tracking by article ID makes a lot more sense than tracking by
Message-ID header. Tracking of a cross-posted article is seeing where
the 1 copy of an article on a server is associated to which newsgroups.

I prefer using Albasani as my primary NNTP server because their
retention period is longer than Eternal-September's. ES was also doing
too much putzing around when they moved from Motzarella and then there
were disk problems later so I stuck with Albasani. When you cross-
posted between alt.windows7.general and alt.comp.os.windows-8, where you
submitting to the same NNTP server? If so then the client should see
the same article ID at the one NNTP server getting listed by GROUP
commands for different newsgroups. Even if you did cross-post to
newsgroups at the same NNTP server, my client is still accessing 2
different NNTP servers for those newsgroups so it would see 2 different
article IDs from each.

With me using Albasani for alt.windows7.general and reading this
cross-posted article for your reply to me there, I see the following
header:

Xref: news.albasani.net alt.windows7.general:85140
alt.comp.os.windows-8:6181

When I look in alt.comp.os.windows-8 at your reply but I'm using
Eternal-September for that newsgroup, I see:

Xref: news.eternal-september.org alt.windows7.general:84621
alt.comp.os.windows-8:6472

Maybe those are the article numbers after the colon. If so then
different servers have different article IDs for the same post but
that's to be expected with them independently managing their own
databases. At Albasani, the Windows7 copy of the article is identified
by 85140. At ES, the Windows7 copy of the article is assigned 84621.
Different article IDs so the client can't be sure they are the same
article across different servers. I suppose an NNTP client could
attempt to use the MID header as a secondary means of associating cross-
posted article except that clients are allowed to create their own MIDs.

RFC 5536 defines NetNews Article Format and where I found the Xref
header defined. See:

http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5536#page-24

So part of the Xref header is to show the article number from the
server. Since Albasani, my server for the Windows7 newsgroup, has
different article numbers for your articles than ES, my server for the
Windows8 newsgroup, then my client can't see they are the same article.

Which server are you using for the alt.windows7.general newsgroup?
Which server are you using for the alt.os.comp.os.windows-8 newsgroup?


I use eternal-september for both.
Sheesh! I've tried to follow you into that labyrinth but I'm afraid I
may have gone astray. At all events I've got an insight into why Tbird
isn't handling cross-posting correctly (and, apparently, wasn't in
earlier versions (see John Williamson above)).

I would have thought that the logical procedure in Tbird would have been
something like this;
Marking as read procedure
..........................
1. Does this message contain more than one group name?
2. If yes, then mark as read in the others too (finding them with MID).
3. If no, then goto4.

What I want now is comments from anyone whose news prog does mark the
others as read.

Ed

Ed Cryer wrote:
During the recent cross/multi-posting controversy I discovered that my
Thunderbird wasn't handling cross-posting properly. It didn't appear to
be marking as read in other groups. I've now updated to version 24 (I'll
have to send this quickly before they turn out another version :-) ).
I'm cross-posting this into alt.comp.os.windows-8. Then I can put it to
the test.

I'd appreciate comments from other Tbird users; and other newsreaders as
well. I'm getting a bit fed up with Tbird.

Ed

I use SM 1.1.19 (Mozilla 5.0). It marks cross posted as read
only in the open group. It does not mark read in the remainder
of the cross posted groups.
IIRC, Netscape 4x did mark cross posted items as read, so for
unknown reasons the Mozilla devs dropped that convenience.

On Sat, 21 Sep 2013 10:18:01 -0500
Paul in Houston TX wrote:

Ed Cryer wrote:
During the recent cross/multi-posting controversy I discovered that my
Thunderbird wasn't handling cross-posting properly. It didn't appear to
be marking as read in other groups. I've now updated to version 24 (I'll
have to send this quickly before they turn out another version :-) ).
I'm cross-posting this into alt.comp.os.windows-8. Then I can put it to
the test.

I'd appreciate comments from other Tbird users; and other newsreaders as
well. I'm getting a bit fed up with Tbird.

Ed

I use SM 1.1.19 (Mozilla 5.0). It marks cross posted as read
only in the open group. It does not mark read in the remainder
of the cross posted groups.
IIRC, Netscape 4x did mark cross posted items as read, so for
unknown reasons the Mozilla devs dropped that convenience.

Sylpheed only marks as read in the current group, but even though they
show up in other groups as 'counted' (bold type) they don't get focus
when "Next Unread" is used.

I haven't completely explored settings in this client yet.

In alt.windows7.general, Paul in Houston TX wrote:

IIRC, Netscape 4x did mark cross posted items as read, so for unknown
reasons the Mozilla devs dropped that convenience.

I do not believe that any Mozilla-based "news client" of any vintage has
ever marked cross-posted messages as read; so no, the devs did not drop
anything.

--
-bts
-This space for rent, but the price is high