Rationale for my posting draft V7 C description

[Bob Goudreau]

In article <26008:Nov2119:38:1890 at kramden.acf.nyu.edu> brnstnd at kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
>
>> Geez, that was exactly the point:  to move the discussion *out* of
>> comp.std.c (where it didn't belong) and into comp.lang.c (where it
>> is appropriate).
>
>That's exactly my point. He was moving the discussion into comp.lang.c,
>so his comments about ``this thread is inappropriate for this group''
>applied to comp.lang.c.

No, that's exactly backwards.  I think I now understand your
confusion.  His "this group" comment did not apply to comp.lang.c,
but to comp.std.c.  See below.

>The article was cross-posted to comp.lang.c and comp.std.c, with
>followups to the former. Obviously the poster thought the subject of the
>article belonged in comp.lang.c. The subject of the article was the
>claim that ``X is inappropriate for this group.'' How can ``this group''
>apply to anything but comp.lang.c?

Here's what happened:

1)  Some person started this discussion by posting to *both*
    comp.lang.c and comp.std.c.

2)  The guy I'm defending posted a followup (thus posted to both
    newsgroups of the original) article wherein he advocated getting
    the discussion *out* of comp.std.c, and leaving it only in
    comp.lang.c.  To this end, he added "Followup-To: comp.lang.c.".
    The only miscue was that he didn't make it eminently clear that
    his use of "this" referred to .std.c and not to .lang.c.  Careful
    readers were able to figure this out.


>> > There's no reason I should have looked at the original newsgroups.
>> There's no excuse for not paying attention to *all* the contents
>> of an article, including its header.
>
>Really? I don't spend time thinking about the Path unless I care what
>path the article took. I don't spend time thinking about the Newsgroups
>unless I care what the original newsgroups were.

The "Newsroups" field doesn't tell you what the original groups were;
it just tells you to which newsgroups the current article was posted.
Bear in mind that you may be reading only one of multiple groups that
saw the message.

>I usually accept the
>last poster's judgment about where a discussion belongs; if he thinks it
>belongs in comp.lang.c, and then refers to ``this group'' without
>further qualification or explanation, why shouldn't I assume he's
>referring to comp.lang.c?

I agree that he blew it as far as removing all possible ambiguity;
he could have helped the situation out by saying something like
"this discussion doesn't belong in the comp.std.c newsgroup" instead
of just "this doesn't belong in this group" and having the reader
figure out (and honest, it wasn't hard; I was able to do it!) from
the context which of the two posted-to groups he meant.  But heck,
that's why it *is* a good idea to look at the headers.  Just like it's
a good idea to look at mail headers, to be able to distinguish between
mail that was sent "To:" you from mail that was merely "Cc:"-ed to you,
or mail that was "Bcc:"-ed to you.  That header information can make
all the difference in the world when you receive mail containing the
word "you", for instance; it lets you know who "you" is.

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