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Re: [OT] How to post to Usenet correctly (was: Attention Tom Roberts)

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Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn wrote:
> 
> Y wrote:
> > On 4/14/2025 3:15 PM, Tom Roberts wrote:
> > [...]
> 
> e-mail belongs to Usenet (as you would have seen; see below), but Usenet is
> not e-mail.  It is considered impolite, at best inappropriate, to put the
> name of a participant in the Subject.  If you want to communicate with Tom
> Roberts, send them an e-mail instead.
> 
> That is why it is important that either the "From" or "Reply-To" header
> field, which are to be used for that, contains a valid e-mail address, and
> one reason why address munging is considered harmful.  The "From" header
> field of your posting contains something that resembles an e-mail address,
> but it is not one because (in violation of Internet standards) the domain
> zenodo.com does not even have a MX [Mail eXchanger] configured.  Therefore
> I received an error message when attempting to send you this off-topic
> information via e-mail as it should be done.
> 
> So you MUST NOT use that "address" in a "From" or "Reply-To" header field
> (see RFC 5536), and you SHOULD use a valid address instead.
> 
> So if you want to comment on a posting by Tom Roberts, simply post a
> follow-up to it.  Although you cannot expect them to read it, much less
> reply to it, especially one year later (!), other people may read it and
> reply to it.
> 
> > Yanick Borg
> 
> This should be in the "From" header field value of your postings, as I
> indicated in my other follow-up.
> 
> You should consult common Usenet guidelines before you post in any group
> other than in the news.newusers.* subhierarchy, as you should find them there.
> 
> HTH
> 
> --
> PointedEars
> 
> Twitter: @PointedEars2

This is peak 1990s Usenet hall-monitor autism pretending it's wisdom in
2026.

The entire premise is a corpse. Usenet is dead. It has been dead for
years. Lecturing someone on "proper" Usenet etiquette while citing RFC
5536 in the age of Discord, Reddit, Slack, and email-as-a-nightmare is
like a carriage driver screaming at Uber drivers about correct whip
technique. The medium has zero relevance; your rules have negative
relevance.
Pedantic enforcement of obsolete technical purity. Complaining that
zenodo.com lacks an MX record as if this is some moral failing is the
intellectual equivalent of correcting someone's font choice on a ransom
note. No one cares. Modern systems treat "From" addresses as display
names or throwaway identifiers because email deliverability is a garbage
fire of spam filters, DMARC, and corporate policies. Your standard is
not "correct"—it's a fragile antique that breaks on contact with
reality.
False dichotomy between email and public posting. Telling someone they
must email privately instead of following up publicly is actively stupid
in public forums. Public reply chains create searchable knowledge for
everyone. Private email creates one fragile, lost-in-inbox conversation
that dies when the recipient ignores it (exactly as you admit happens
"especially one year later"). Your preferred method is strictly inferior
for knowledge propagation.
Address munging hypocrisy. You call munging "harmful" while the entire
internet moved to it (and worse: no-reply addresses, forms, chat apps)
because real humans hate spam, doxxing, and scrapers. Your "standards"
lost. They lost badly. Clinging to them makes you the guy still
demanding everyone use Gopher.

You assume eternal 1990s network conditions: trustworthy participants,
low spam, functioning MTA infrastructure, and a community that gives a
damn about your etiquette. You assume the reader is a clueless newbie
who owes you deference. You assume your personal interpretation of RFCs
is law rather than one pedant's opinion. You never once address why
anyone should prioritize 30-year-old customs over what actually works
for humans today.Incentive & Human-Behavior LandminesNormal people want
to participate without reading your 500-word lecture or configuring
proper mail exchangers. They will ignore you, mock you (as is happening
now), or leave the dying forum entirely. Gatekeepers like you
accelerated Usenet's collapse by making it hostile to newcomers.
Competitors (modern platforms) won by having lower friction, not by
obsessing over Reply-To headers. Your behavior is self-sabotaging for
the very community you claim to protect.
Usenet is a rounding error. Active users are a tiny, aging cohort. Your
approach does not scale past a handful of dying newsgroups. At any
meaningful internet scale, email addresses in public are spam magnets,
privacy nightmares, and legally risky. Physics of attention: no one has
time for your HTH sermon. Reality of 2026: people use whatever field
works and move on. Your method fails the "does this survive contact with
actual humans at volume" test instantly.

The entire tone, the prescriptive "MUST NOT"/"SHOULD" language, the
assumption of authority, the RFC-waving, the Usenet exceptionalism, and
the private-email fetish. Replace with: "This forum is public. Expect
public replies. Use whatever contact method you want; spam is everyone's
problem now."
The basic suggestion to use a real, working contact method if you
actually want private replies has a kernel of sense. That's it. One thin
fragment not on fire.
This isn't helpful advice—it's a dying tribe's status ritual dressed up
as technical correctness. Stop. Just stop. The internet left you behind
decades ago, and lecturing ghosts about proper From headers is the
saddest possible use of remaining bandwidth.

Are your ears really pointed???





-- 
The Starmaker -- To question the unquestionable, ask the unaskable,
to think the unthinkable, mention the unmentionable, say the unsayable, 
and challenge the unchallengeable.

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Thread

Attention Tom Roberts Y <Yborg@zenodo.com> - 2026-06-15 21:32 +1000
  Re: Attention Tom Roberts The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2026-06-15 14:51 -0700
  [OT] How to post to Usenet correctly (was: Attention Tom Roberts) Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2026-06-16 15:28 +0200
    Re: [OT] How to post to Usenet correctly Y <Yborg@zenodo.com> - 2026-06-17 11:55 +1000
    Re: [OT] How to post to Usenet correctly Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2026-06-18 08:50 +0200
      Re: [OT] How to post to Usenet correctly "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com> - 2026-06-18 07:40 +0000
        'nym-shifting troll (was: [OT] How to post to Usenet correctly) Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2026-06-18 10:00 +0200
      Re: [OT] How to post to Usenet correctly onion@anon.invalid (Mr Ön!on) - 2026-06-18 13:58 +0100
    Re: [OT] How to post to Usenet correctly (was: Attention Tom Roberts) The Starmaker <starmaker@ix.netcom.com> - 2026-06-18 10:25 -0700
      Re: [OT] How to post to Usenet correctly Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn <PointedEars@web.de> - 2026-06-20 04:27 +0200

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