LYNX-DEV Mangled default Subject header for news followups

[WWW server manager]

I just started looking at lynx 2.7.1 + fotemods (downloaded 11 Aug 97), and
on looking to see how it handles news (which I'd not tried with lynx for a
long time) I noticed a bug... This is on a Solaris 2.5.1 system with Sun's
unbundled C compiler (V4.0), though I doubt that's relevant.

When posting a non-followup, so the user enters the Subject: header text, 
all is well. 

When using lynx to post a followup to an article that is not itself a followup
(i.e. the existing article's subject line does NOT start with "Re: "), the
default Subject: header created by lynx for the followup (as displayed during
composition, and as posted if not edited before posting) is mangled.

Specifically, the first 3 characters of the original subject are replaced by 
"Re: " (4 characters, so it's not simply writing "Re: " over the start of
the original subject).

For example, "A test" becomes "Re: est" in the followup.

Posting a followup to an existing followup (with Re: as the start of the 
subject) preserves the subject line intact, as it should. 

On a different-but-related point, newly posted "initial" articles (not
followups) seem to be visible in the group (i.e. article list display)
immediately after posting, whereas followups do not appear there
immediately, mostly (but not always) failing to appear even if you use
control-R to refresh the list. Does lynx handle those two posting situations 
the same or differently, in relation to whether or not (and how?) it checks 
for newly arrived articles? 

I know that some servers may return old (unchanged) details of articles in a
group if asked again "too soon", if the request would involve rescanning a
possibly-large directory, but the behaviour I saw (admittedly for a small
number of test postings) didn't really fit with that explanation, since
postings of one type seemed to be visible immediately (and with no action on
my part) while the others seemed "reluctant to appear" even with control-R.
Pure coincidence, or is it standard behaviour? And if the latter, is it
intentional or accident, assuming it's due to lynx handling the cases 
differently?

                                John Line
-- 
University of Cambridge WWW manager account (usually John Line)
Send general WWW-related enquiries to address@hidden
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