RFC 1036              Standard for USENET Messages         December 1987


    Also for upward compatibility, if the first 4 characters of the
    "Subject:" line are "cmsg", the rest of the "Subject:" line should
    be interpreted as a control message.

2.2.7.  Distribution

    This line is used to alter the distribution scope of the message.
    It is a comma separated list similar to the "Newsgroups" line.  User
    subscriptions are still controlled by "Newsgroups", but the message
    is sent to all systems subscribing to the newsgroups on the
    "Distribution" line in addition to the "Newsgroups" line.  For the
    message to be transmitted, the receiving site must normally receive
    one of the specified newsgroups AND must receive one of the
    specified distributions.  Thus, a message concerning a car for sale
    in New Jersey might have headers including:

                   Newsgroups: rec.auto,misc.forsale
                   Distribution: nj,ny

    so that it would only go to persons subscribing to rec.auto or misc.
    for sale within New Jersey or New York.  The intent of this header
    is to restrict the distribution of a newsgroup further, not to
    increase it.  A local newsgroup, such as nj.crazy-eddie, will
    probably not be propagated by hosts outside New Jersey that do not
    show such a newsgroup as valid.  A follow-up message should default
    to the same "Distribution" line as the original message, but the
    user can change it to a more limited one, or escalate the
    distribution if it was originally restricted and a more widely
    distributed reply is appropriate.

2.2.8.  Organization

    The text of this line is a short phrase describing the organization
    to which the sender belongs, or to which the machine belongs.  The
    intent of this line is to help identify the person posting the
    message, since host names are often cryptic enough to make it hard
    to recognize the organization by the electronic address.

2.2.9.  Keywords

    A few well-selected keywords identifying the message should be on
    this line.  This is used as an aid in determining if this message is
    interesting to the reader.

2.2.10.  Summary

    This line should contain a brief summary of the message.  It is
    usually used as part of a follow-up to another message.  Again, it




 
RFC 1036              Standard for USENET Messages         December 1987


    is very useful to the reader in determining whether to read the
    message.

2.2.11.  Approved

    This line is required for any message posted to a moderated
    newsgroup.  It should be added by the moderator and consist of his
    mail address.  It is also required with certain control messages.

2.2.12.  Lines

    This contains a count of the number of lines in the body of the
    message.

2.2.13.  Xref

    This line contains the name of the host (with domains omitted) and a
    white space separated list of colon-separated pairs of newsgroup
    names and message numbers.  These are the newsgroups listed in the
    "Newsgroups" line and the corresponding message numbers from the
    spool directory.

    This is only of value to the local system, so it should not be
    transmitted.  For example, in:

               Path: seismo!lll-crg!lll-lcc!pyramid!decwrl!reid
               From: reid@decwrl.DEC.COM (Brian Reid)
               Newsgroups: news.lists,news.groups
               Subject: USENET READERSHIP SUMMARY REPORT FOR SEP 86
               Message-ID: <5658@decwrl.DEC.COM>
               Date: 1 Oct 86 11:26:15 GMT
               Organization: DEC Western Research Laboratory
               Lines: 441
               Approved: reid@decwrl.UUCP