Carmel said:
Technically, it is not invalid. See: RFC1036 & RFC2076. There are also
MUAs such as Mutt that employ it. It is non-standard though. There was
an RFC proposed for its usage that is still awaiting final approval
which will probably never come.
I've seen users use the FollowUp-To header that points to the same
newsgroup(s) to which they posted; i.e., there's no difference in the
newsgroups listed in the Newsgroups and FollowUp-To headers. Dumb. I've
see users that are rude by shotgunning their post into newsgroups where they
have no intention on discussing their post, so regulars or visitors to those
abandoned newsgroups get disconnected. Rude.
So far, the only time that I've seen the proper or *logical* use of the
FollowUp-To header is where one newsgroup is to post exhibits of spam but
discussions of it belong in another discussion group. I'm not sure what was
the history behind this header but I suspect it was expected for use under
conditions which typical users never consider.
If you use a FollowUp-To header which has a different list of newsgroups
than does the Newsgroups header then you should never have posted into those
other newsgroups in the first place. All you did (if anyone bothered to
obey your request using that header) was generated NOISE in the other
groups.
Here's my canned rant on the misuse (which is often redundant or rude rather
than proper use) of that header:
--- Rant on inappropriate use of the FollowUp-To header ---
Don't use the FollowUp-To header. Posting to, say, 3 newsgroups but moving
replies to just 1 of them or to a completely different one means you
disconnect the visitors of those other 2 (or 3) newsgroups from the rest of
the discussion. If a newsgroup is appropriate for your post then it is also
appropriate for the replies. Or, converserly, if the continued discussion
of your post is not appropriate in all the newsgroups to which you
cross-posted then you should not have posted to those other newsgroups in
the first place. You are using the FollowUp-To header to move replies to
YOUR "home" newsgroup but which the users of the other newsgroups may not
visit. After all, if you cross-post and include your "home" newsgroup then
you'll see all those replies in your home newsgroup and meanwhile all the
other users can still see the replies in their newsgroup where you decided
to also publish your post.
In
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/primer/part1/, it says, "For a
cross-post, you may want to set the Followup-To: header line to the most
suitable group for the rest of the discussion". Read another way, that
means you disconnect the discussion from all the visitors of the other
newsgroups to which you decided to publish your post. Why did you publish
to those other newsgroups if you are going to yank the discussion away from
those users and perhaps even from the respondents you were attempting to
elicit? It is exasperating to post a reply and never see it in the
newsgroup where you read the original post. If your post was appropriate
for all the groups to which you cross-posted then why wouldn't those same
groups be appropriate for the replies? To yank away the discussion to your
"home" group is rude since that is probably not the "home" group for your
respondents. You wanted replies which may require further replies but now
your respondents no longer see the thread in the newsgroup that they visit
to where you published your post. Also, the respondents may not know if
their reply is appropriate in the "home" group that you happen to choose.
In general, malcontents and spammers use the FollowUp-To header to hide
negative replies to their flame or spam posts, often sending the replies off
to a *.test newsgroup. Is that the company of users to which you want to be
associated?
There are some cases where FollowUp-To should be used. For example, say a
newsgroup is supposed to only get used for citing the content of a spam
e-mail. Discussions about that spam are not supposed to be published in
that citing newsgroup. Just the exhibits are published there. If someone
wants to discuss that particular spam, their replies should go into a
different newsgroup meant for those discussions. I believe that is how some
of the NANAE newsgroups operate but the principle may apply elsewhere, like
for an *.announce group where only announcements are to be made but
discussions about them are to be posted in another group; however, it is
rare few newsgroups where FollowUp-To is appropriate. For the vast majority
of newsgroups, FollowUp-To is *not* appropriate. If you do not want
continue the discussion in the other newsgroups then don't cross-post over
there to only then use FollowUp-To to yank away the continued discussion.
If the discussion is not appropriate in those other newsgroups then it seems
you have self-nominated your post to be off-topic and hence spam.
If you do use the FollowUp-To header, you are expected per netiquette to
alert the readers of your post that you used that header. Be polite and add
a note (at the start of your post) saying that you used the header (ex.,
"WARNING: FollowUp-To was used and points to <newsgroup>". You might also
want to explain why you consider any further discussion in the other
newsgroups is inappropriate despite your rudeness in posting to those other
newsgroups. Many times respondents wonder where their reply post went
because they expect to see it in the group they visited and where they read
your post. Not all NNTP clients alert the user that the poster used the
FollowUp-To header. Think about it: you post to multiple newsgroups but
yank the replies to a different newsgroup than where your respondents
visited, then you need more help and reply to those replies but which are
now only in your "home" newsgroup, but the respondents won't see their posts
nor will they see your replies to them asking for more help. FollowUp-To is
not required when you cross-post since your "home" newsgroup should be one
those that were specified in the list of newsgroups. You'll watch the
discussion in your home newsgroup and the respondents or lurkers can watch
that same discussion in their own newsgroup. If you don't want replies to
show up in all the newsgroups to which you cross-posted then don't
cross-post over there in the first place!
When crossposting, there are not multiple copies of your post that wastes
bandwidth for each to get them propagated to other NNTP servers and there
aren't multiple copies of your post consuming disk space. A single copy
gets sent to the other NNTP servers and a single copy resides on each NNTP
server with pointers to it to make it show up in multiple newsgroups. You
aren't saving bandwidth or disk space by redirecting replies for a
cross-posted message to a single newsgroup. You are just being rude to the
visitors of the other newsgroups to which you cross-posted but tried to yank
away the discussion.
--- End of rant ---
