what happened today at 1923 CET ?

[pjessen]

The fora have all been quiet for a while, when suddenly everyone started
posting at 19:23 CET today - or that's what it looked like. Sounds more
like a copy operation that got held up - sh** happens, but it would
have been nice if the postings had retained theie original timestamps.



--
Per Jessen, Zürich (23.9°C)
http://en.opensuse.org/Userjessen

[hendersj]

On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:25:27 +0000, Per Jessen wrote:

> The fora have all been quiet for a while, when suddenly everyone started
> posting at 19:23 CET today - or that's what it looked like. Sounds more
> like a copy operation that got held up - sh** happens, but it would have
> been nice if the postings had retained theie original timestamps.

The gateway hung up - and then the issue was found and addressed.
Message timestamps are assigned by the NNTP server, so when they come
through the gateway, that's when they're timestamped - not a lot we can
do about that without completely redoing the setup - and we have it
configured so the server timestamps so we're not dependent on each client
having their time set correctly (which would lead to a bigger mess).

Jim



--
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

[pjessen]

Jim Henderson wrote:

> On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:25:27 +0000, Per Jessen wrote:
>
>> The fora have all been quiet for a while, when suddenly everyone
>> started posting at 19:23 CET today - or that's what it looked like.
>> Sounds more like a copy operation that got held up - sh** happens,
>> but it would have been nice if the postings had retained theie
>> original timestamps.
>
> The gateway hung up - and then the issue was found and addressed.

I had pretty much guessed that :-)

> Message timestamps are assigned by the NNTP server, so when they come
> through the gateway, that's when they're timestamped - not a lot we
> can do about that without completely redoing the setup - and we have
> it configured so the server timestamps so we're not dependent on each
> client having their time set correctly (which would lead to a bigger
> mess).

Hmm, my news-server uses the Date: field in the email, that works very
well. A simple solution would be to use the forum posting timestamp
instead.



--
Per Jessen, Zürich (20.5°C)
http://en.opensuse.org/Userjessen

[Carlos E. R.]

On 2010-07-21 22:31 GMT Jim Henderson wrote:

> On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:25:27 +0000, Per Jessen wrote:
>
> > The fora have all been quiet for a while, when suddenly everyone
> > started posting at 19:23 CET today - or that's what it looked like.
> > Sounds more like a copy operation that got held up - sh** happens,
> > but it would have been nice if the postings had retained theie
> > original timestamps.
>
> The gateway hung up - and then the issue was found and addressed.
> Message timestamps are assigned by the NNTP server, so when they come
> through the gateway, that's when they're timestamped - not a lot we
> can do about that without completely redoing the setup - and we have
> it configured so the server timestamps so we're not dependent on each
> client having their time set correctly (which would lead to a bigger
> mess).

Dunno about that, it is how mail works. I like to see at what time a
post was sent, and on what timezone. Here, all posts I see say their
timezone is "GMT", which makes no sense at all.

Looking at the headers of your post, I see three dates:

Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:31:14 GMT
X-Trace: kozak.provo.novell.com 1279751474 68.165.29.223 (Wed, 21 Jul
2010 16:31:14 MDT)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:31:14 MDT

I assume the NNTP-Posting-Date is from the nntp server, and "Date"
should be the local time of the poster - which probably is not, it is
also done by the server.

And my guess is that most machines nowdays have correct time/date.


For example, this post I'm writing is done at 12:41 local, or 10:41
UTC, but it will be several hours till is sent (I'm offline).

--
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" GM (Minas Tirith))

[hendersj]

On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 06:34:26 +0000, Per Jessen wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 21 Jul 2010 19:25:27 +0000, Per Jessen wrote:
>>
>>> The fora have all been quiet for a while, when suddenly everyone
>>> started posting at 19:23 CET today - or that's what it looked like.
>>> Sounds more like a copy operation that got held up - sh** happens, but
>>> it would have been nice if the postings had retained theie original
>>> timestamps.
>>
>> The gateway hung up - and then the issue was found and addressed.
>
> I had pretty much guessed that :-)
>
>> Message timestamps are assigned by the NNTP server, so when they come
>> through the gateway, that's when they're timestamped - not a lot we can
>> do about that without completely redoing the setup - and we have it
>> configured so the server timestamps so we're not dependent on each
>> client having their time set correctly (which would lead to a bigger
>> mess).
>
> Hmm, my news-server uses the Date: field in the email, that works very
> well. A simple solution would be to use the forum posting timestamp
> instead.

That would require changes to both the gateway software and the
configuration on the NNTP server. The problem with turning off the
server's timestamping of messages is if I set my time to sometime in 2063
and post, that's what the messages will be timestamped with, and that
will cause other problems.

IOW, it's not the web side that's the problem, it's managing (or the lack
of ability to manage) the time settings for anyone using NNTP and the
side effects of just accepting the poster's timestamp.

Jim



--
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

[hendersj]

On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:04:02 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:

> Dunno about that, it is how mail works. I like to see at what time a
> post was sent, and on what timezone. Here, all posts I see say their
> timezone is "GMT", which makes no sense at all.

Sure it does - UTC (GMT) is a common point of reference. If I post a
message now (10:10 AM MDT), that is 16:10 GMT.

> Looking at the headers of your post, I see three dates:
>
> Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:31:14 GMT
> X-Trace: kozak.provo.novell.com 1279751474 68.165.29.223 (Wed, 21 Jul
> 2010 16:31:14 MDT)
> NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:31:14 MDT
>
> I assume the NNTP-Posting-Date is from the nntp server, and "Date"
> should be the local time of the poster - which probably is not, it is
> also done by the server.

Correct.

> And my guess is that most machines nowdays have correct time/date.

You'd be surprised at how many people have incorrect time on their
system. I was working with someone the other day whose clock was several
hours off for their local time (but not UTC either) and they'd been told
not to change it for some reason.

> For example, this post I'm writing is done at 12:41 local, or 10:41 UTC,
> but it will be several hours till is sent (I'm offline).

Yep, and the time that's relevant to the rest of us is when it got to the
server. :-)

Jim



--
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

[pjessen]

Jim Henderson wrote:

> On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 06:34:26 +0000, Per Jessen wrote:
>
>> Hmm, my news-server uses the Date: field in the email, that works
>> very well. A simple solution would be to use the forum posting
>> timestamp instead.
>
> That would require changes to both the gateway software and the
> configuration on the NNTP server.

Completely appreciate that, I just wanted to mention that a simple
solution was within reach.

> The problem with turning off the server's timestamping of messages is
> if I set my time to sometime in 2063 and post, that's what the
> messages will be timestamped with, and that will cause other problems..

A typical news-server setup will reject such messages. I'm pretty
certain it's a standard inn feature. My own setup maps emails to nntp,
and rejects emails with ancient or future timestamps.



--
Per Jessen, Zürich (20.8°C)
http://en.opensuse.org/Userjessen

[hendersj]

On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:21:16 +0000, Per Jessen wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 06:34:26 +0000, Per Jessen wrote:
>>
>>> Hmm, my news-server uses the Date: field in the email, that works very
>>> well. A simple solution would be to use the forum posting timestamp
>>> instead.
>>
>> That would require changes to both the gateway software and the
>> configuration on the NNTP server.
>
> Completely appreciate that, I just wanted to mention that a simple
> solution was within reach.
>
>> The problem with turning off the server's timestamping of messages is
>> if I set my time to sometime in 2063 and post, that's what the messages
>> will be timestamped with, and that will cause other problems.
>
> A typical news-server setup will reject such messages. I'm pretty
> certain it's a standard inn feature. My own setup maps emails to nntp,
> and rejects emails with ancient or future timestamps.

I don't know if the server we use would reject those or not - if I find a
few minutes, I'll review the docs and see.

Jim



--
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C

[DenverD]

Carlos E. R. wrote:
> Here, all posts I see say their timezone is "GMT", which makes no
> sense at all.

not sure but i think that is your client's 'feature' to calculate the
GMT (based on what/how the sender's client stamped the post)..

for example: the header for the note i'm responding to prints:

NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:04:02 MDT

with MDT for "Mountain Daylight Time" (Utah Summer) because that is
when the server received it (i guess), but then it shows here (in my
thunderbird) as 16:04 CET based on my locale....and, i guess your
ClawsMail would show it as 14:04 GMT..

client specific.

--
DenverD
CAVEAT: http://is.gd/bpoMD [posted via NNTP w/openSUSE 10.3]

[Carlos E. R.]

On 2010-07-22 16:12 GMT Jim Henderson wrote:

> On Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:04:02 +0000, Carlos E. R. wrote:
>
> > Dunno about that, it is how mail works. I like to see at what time a
> > post was sent, and on what timezone. Here, all posts I see say their
> > timezone is "GMT", which makes no sense at all.
>
> Sure it does - UTC (GMT) is a common point of reference. If I post a
> message now (10:10 AM MDT), that is 16:10 GMT.

No, no. I mean that it doesn't make sense that everybody is posting
from the GMT time zone: we should be seeing posts made from all the
timezones.

I mean that I would like to see "MDT" on your timestamp, not GMT.


> > Looking at the headers of your post, I see three dates:
> >
> > Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 22:31:14 GMT
> > X-Trace: kozak.provo.novell.com 1279751474 68.165.29.223 (Wed, 21
> > Jul 2010 16:31:14 MDT)
> > NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:31:14 MDT
> >
> > I assume the NNTP-Posting-Date is from the nntp server, and "Date"
> > should be the local time of the poster - which probably is not, it
> > is also done by the server.
>
> Correct.
>
> > And my guess is that most machines nowdays have correct time/date.
>
> You'd be surprised at how many people have incorrect time on their
> system. I was working with someone the other day whose clock was
> several hours off for their local time (but not UTC either) and
> they'd been told not to change it for some reason.

Ah, well, those are exceptions. And if you see someone with the wrong
time/date, you can tell them to correct their installation ;-)



> > For example, this post I'm writing is done at 12:41 local, or 10:41
> > UTC, but it will be several hours till is sent (I'm offline).
>
> Yep, and the time that's relevant to the rest of us is when it got to
> the server. :-)

No, both times are relevant. It is interesting to know when the poster
wrote, because it correlates to the info he had available, and when it
was actually sent.

Let me explain with an example.

at 10:00 UTC Guy A posts a question.
at 11:00 UTC Guy B writes (not sends) a solution
at 12:00 UTC Guy C posts a question from A.
at 13:00 UTC Guy A answers C question, which will
invalidate Mr B solution
at 14:00 UTC Guy B gets online post all his pending posts.


It is clear that B did not see A 2nd posts at the time he wrote. But
now look at what will happen with the time stamps as they currently are:


at 10:00 UTC Guy A posts a question.
at 11:00 UTC Guy B writes (not sends) a solution
at 12:00 UTC Guy C posts a question from A.
at 13:00 UTC Guy A answers C question, which will
invalidate Mr B solution
at 14:00 UTC Guy B gets online to send all his pending posts.
But his post will be dated 14:00 UTC.
at 14:30 UTC Guy C remonstrate to B for not using info
from 2nd A post, which at 14:00 was available (for an hour).


Flames! >:-P


Granted, not every body can be subject to this scenario, but I am. Or
was.

Ha! I just noticed. I just sent, an hour ago, a post I wrote about
20 hours before, because I forgot to run "fetchnews" yesterday... but
it will be dated today.


--
Cheers / Saludos,

Carlos E. R.
(from 11.2 x86_64 "Emerald" GM (Elessar))