usefor-article-12 November 2003

8.6.  Duties of a Followup Agent

   A Followup Agent is a special case of a posting agent and as such is
   bound by all the posting agent's requirements. Followup agents MUST
   create valid followups and are subject to the following special
   requirements involving certain inheritable (4.2.5.2) and other
   headers.

   1. The Newsgroups-header (5.5) SHOULD be initialized from the
      precursor's Followup-To-header, if present and otherwise from the
      precursor's Newsgroups-header, when preparing a followup; however
      posters MAY then change this before posting if they wish.

   2. The Subject-content (5.4) of the precursor MAY (and usually will)
      be prepended with the back-reference "Re: " (which is case
      sensitive), unless that precursor is itself a followup with "Re: "
      already present in its Subject-content; however posters MAY then
      change this before posting if they wish.  The prepended "Re: "
      SHOULD NOT be contained within any encoded-word in the new
      Subject-content.

      Followup agents SHOULD NOT use any other string except "Re: " as a
      back-reference, and specifically NOT a translation of "Re: " into
      a local language, and they SHOULD NOT prepend a "Re: " if one is
      already present.
[The provision of back-references and their allowed forms are still
under discussion in the Usefor Working Group.]

        NOTE: "Re" is an abbreviation for the Latin "In re", meaning "in
        the matter of", and not an abbreviation of "Reference" as is
        sometimes erroneously supposed. Reading agents often take note
        of a single "Re: " at the beginning of a Subject-content (for
        example, in order to display a list of articles sorted by
        Subject). These restrictions ensure that reading agents have no
        need to recognize more than a single occurrence of "Re: ".

   3. The Distribution-header (6.6) SHOULD be initialized from the
      precursor's Distribution-header, if any; however posters MAY then
      change this before posting if they wish.

   4. If the precursor did not have a References-header (6.10), the
      followup's References-content MUST be formed by the message
      identifier of the precursor. A followup to an article which had a
      References-header MUST have a References-header containing the
      precursor's References-content (subject to trimming as described
      below) plus the precursor's message identifier appended to the end
      of the list (separated from it by CFWS).

      Followup agents MAY trim References-headers which have grown to
      excessive length, but the first and last message identifiers from
      the precursor MUST NOT be removed.

   5. If the precursor contains a Mail-Copies-To-header (6.8), The
      actions to be taken, in accordance with the Mail-Copies-To-
      content, (and subject to manual override by the poster) are as
      follows:

      "nobody" (or when the header is absent)
  The followup agent SHOULD NOT email a copy of the followup
  to the poster of the precursor.

      "poster"
  The followup agent SHOULD (if it has the necessary
  capability) email a copy of the followup, which MUST then be
  sent to the address(es) in the Reply-To-header, and in the
  absence of that to the address(es) in the From-header.

      a copy-addr
  The followup agent SHOULD likewise email a copy of the
  followup, which MUST then be sent to the copy-addr.

      When emailing a copy, the followup agent SHOULD also include a
      "Posted-And-Mailed: yes" header (6.9).

      Followup agents SHOULD NOT attempt to send email to any address
      ending in ".invalid".

--- ../usefor-article-11/Duties_of_a_Followup_Agent.out          June 2003
+++ ../usefor-article-12/Duties_of_a_Followup_Agent.out          November 2003
@@ -7,24 +7,24 @@
    headers.
 
    1. The Newsgroups-header (5.5) SHOULD be initialized from the
-      precursor's Followup-To-header, if present, when preparing a
-      followup; however posters MAY then change this before posting if
-      they wish.
+      precursor's Followup-To-header, if present and otherwise from the
+      precursor's Newsgroups-header, when preparing a followup; however
+      posters MAY then change this before posting if they wish.
 
    2. The Subject-content (5.4) of the precursor MAY (and usually will)
       be prepended with the back-reference "Re: " (which is case
       sensitive), unless that precursor is itself a followup with "Re: "
       already present in its Subject-content; however posters MAY then
-      change this before posting if they wish.
+      change this before posting if they wish.  The prepended "Re: "
+      SHOULD NOT be contained within any encoded-word in the new
+      Subject-content.
 
-      Followup agents MUST NOT use any other string except "Re: " as a
+      Followup agents SHOULD NOT use any other string except "Re: " as a
       back-reference, and specifically NOT a translation of "Re: " into
-      a local language, and they MUST NOT prepend a "Re: " if one is
+      a local language, and they SHOULD NOT prepend a "Re: " if one is
       already present.
 [The provision of back-references and their allowed forms are still
-under discussion in the Usefor Working Group.
-The matter of a "Re: " occurring within an encoded-word needs to be
-clarified.]
+under discussion in the Usefor Working Group.]
 
         NOTE: "Re" is an abbreviation for the Latin "In re", meaning "in
         the matter of", and not an abbreviation of "Reference" as is
@@ -72,6 +72,6 @@
       When emailing a copy, the followup agent SHOULD also include a
       "Posted-And-Mailed: yes" header (6.9).
 
-      Followup agents MUST NOT attempt to send email to any address
+      Followup agents SHOULD NOT attempt to send email to any address
       ending in ".invalid".