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FTSC                             FIDONET TECHNICAL STANDARDS COMMITTEE
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Publication:    FRL-1001
Revision:       1
Title:          Suggested use of Nodelist Fields
Author:         Lee Kindness
Revision Date:  15 June 1999
Expiry Date:    N/A
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Contents:
               1. Field 3, Node Name
               2. Field 4, Location
               3. Field 5, Sysop Name
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Status of this document
-----------------------

 This document is a Fidonet Reference Library document (FRL).

 This document arises from, and obsoletes FSP-1003 which was not
 promoted to a Fidonet standard. The reasons for this decision are
 given below.

 This document is released to the public domain, and may be used,
 copied or modified for any purpose whatever.


Ajudication
-----------

 The FTSC decided not to recommend FSP-1003 for promotion to a
 FidoNet Standard for the following reasons:

 * It was felt that the statistical analysis used to justify the
 chosen field sizes was too simplistic. For example, without the
 standard deviation of each field length it is impossible to
 estimate the number of nodes who would be required to change
 their nodelist entries.

 * Moreover, it is apparent that even with such use of large
 nodelist fields the existing software is coping without difficulty
 and there is on justification for imposing limits that did not
 exist previously.


Introduction
------------

 This document makes recommendations on the use of various fields in
 the distribution nodelist (St. Louis nodelist format", fts-0005).
 Naturally it is the choice of the *C's if they want to use them.
 Remember the fts-0005 requirements should still be adhered to.


1. Field 3, Node Name
---------------------

 The node name field should be no more than 20 characters long. For
 comparison in nodelist.122'1997 the minimum entry was 1, maximum 51!
 and the average was 14.

 For zone entries this field should contain a description of the
 zones area, (eg North America, Europe). For region entries it should
 contain the country/state, for host entries the local area name and
 for hub entries a description of the area the hub serves.


2. Field 4, Location
--------------------

 This field contains the location of the node. It should usually be
 expressed as the primary local location (town, suburb, city, etc.)
 plus an identifier of the regional geopolitical administrative
 district (state, province, department, county, etc.). Wherever
 possible, standard postal abbreviations for the major regional
 district should be used (IL, BC, NSW, UK, etc.).

 For zone and region entries this field should also have the julian
 day of segment creation appended to it (eg "Somearea_(122)") to aid
 checks on the validity of the nodelist.


3. Field 5, Sysop Name
----------------------

 This field contains the name of the system operator. Entries such as
 "postmaster" and "uucp" should not be used. Aliases should not be
 permitted in this field (as they give Fidonet a 'less respectable'
 image).


A. Author contact data
----------------------

 Lee Kindness
 Fidonet: n/a
 E-mail:  [email protected]
 WWW:     http://www.scms.rgu.ac.uk/students/cs_yr94/lk/fido.html


B. History
----------

 Rev.1, 990615: Tranformation from FSP-1003 to FRL-1001


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