Text 704, 76 rader
Skriven 2007-03-09 04:55:53 av Mithgol the Webmaster (2:5063/88)
    Kommentar till text 703 av andrew clarke (3:633/267.0)
Ärende: FidoURL.txt
===================
And about 09:00 08 Mar 07 it was written from andrew clarke to Mithgol the
Webmaster:

 ac> Currently my only real issue with what you propose is the URL prefixes
 ac> you've chosen.  It is completely non-obvious that "area://" relates at
 ac> all to FidoNet.  Also, many of us - especially the people who have
 ac> participated in FidoNet for several years - refer to these resources as
 ac> "echoes".  (I've often wondered why AreaFix was not named EchoFix - not
 ac> that I have any real idea where "fix" comes from.)

Unfortunately, though I considered this idea ('echo://') when I first discussed
the idea of Fidonet URLs, I had to avoid it, it causes too much confusion.

Shannar (Boris Kassal, 2:463/587) brought to my attention that though some
Fidonet users think that 'echo' relates to Fidonet only, that's simply not true
because in Internet there is an 'echo' protocol (RFC 862). And if Fidonet URLs
are going to be ever used in Internet (I envision the future where Fidonet
hyperlinks would be used in Internet just like we use Internet hyperlinks in
Fidonet), then we'd better choose another name. URL schemes are often called
'protocols', just because some of them are really abbreviations of protocols
(http:// for HyperText Transfer Protocol, ftp:// for File Transfer Protocol).
Imagine an Internet user that encounters echo:// for the first time in his life
and googles for 'echo protocol' ÄÄ he'll get references to RFC 862 and articles
like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECHO_protocol ÄÄ such an Internet user would
be confused and won't get a slightest hint that there's a thing like Fidonet
and echomail areas in it. The meaning of echo:// is going to be misunterstood.

And yet another reason: if I have already chosen 'fecho://' URL scheme for
resources in fileechoes, I just can't risk choosing 'echo://' as a scheme,
because URLs tend to be sometimes mistyped by chance, and it would be too much
confusion if a single missing letter unexpectedly brings another valid URL to
life. Especially because I know that some echoes and corresponding fileechoes
use the same name.

I can't avoid the possible confusion just by renaming 'fecho://' instead,
because the name 'fecho://' looks optimal. For example, I can't use 'file://'
because of the existing Internet 'file://' scheme that designates a local file,
and I can't risk names like 'filee://' because of the same possibility of
mistypes, and I won't try anything long like 'fileecho://' because long scheme
would annoy users when it is necessary to type an URL (though most of the URLs
are just copied and pasted, there's sometimes a need to type them), and also
because long schemes make URLs longer and harder to fit into existing 80-symbol
limit of the Fidonet text line. If the designated object has a long object-path
like fecho://NFTN/hsk14rc5.zip/husky-all-1.4-rc5-win32.zip/bin/fecfg2fconf.exe
(this is a real URL, it designates the FastEcho-to-HPT configuration converter
posted in NFTN fileecho) and even longer, you really feel that a short scheme
helps to avoid line wrapping limits.

Having considered the above reasons, I came to the conclusion that 'echo://' is
not optimal, and some other word should be used instead of it.

 ac> PS. I have a bit of a problem taking anyone calling themselves "Mithgol
 ac> the Webmaster" seriously.  I'd prefer you used your real name here, but
 ac> that's just my personal opinion.

The coincidence just somehow assembled itself that most of people related to my
draft of FGHI use pseudonyms:

Author:             Mithgol the Webmaster (Sergey Sokoloff, 2:5063/88)
Special thanks to:  Shannar                  (Boris Kassal, 2:463/587)
                    Trooper            (Alexey Bezugly, 2:5030/1520.9)
                    NoSFeRaTU          (Konstantin Kuzov, 2:5019/40.1)

 ac> PPS. For those interested, the FidoNet Echomail Archive (formerly at
 ac> http://fidonet.sensationcontent.com/) is has been offline for several
 ac> weeks, but I'm hoping to have it back online very soon!

Great.


With best Fidonet 2.0 regards,
Mithgol the Webmaster.                 [Real nodelisted name: Sergey Sokoloff]

... 99. Any data file of crucial importance will be padded to 1.45Mb in size.
--- Orcs are near, Andrew Clarke! My Golded 1.1.5-b20060515 is gleaming!..
 * Origin: Be careful, the paranoid ones are always wathing you!.. (2:5063/88)