An RFC (Request For Comment) is a formal mechanism used to describe communi-
cations standards for the Internet and systems (like USENET) that are closely
tied to it.  The relevant RFCs for news include:

1123  Requirements for Internet hosts - application and support. Braden, R.T.,
      ed.  1989 October; 98 p. (Format: TXT=245503 bytes)  (Updated by RFC 
      1349)

(A small part of this long RFC is relevant to news: it amends RFC 822 so
that, in dates, a 4-digit year is no longer prohibited, but is preferred;
and that numeric time zone names are suggested).

1036  Horton, M.R.; Adams, R.  Standard for interchange of USENET messages.  
      1987 December; 19 p. (Format: TXT=46891 bytes)  (Obsoletes RFC 850)

(This is the most relevant of this set, to this newsgroup.  Note: an effort
is currently underway to revise and update RFC 1036 to better reflect modern
practice.  A *long* (53pp.) draft proposal of this "Son-of-RFC-1036" is
available for anonymous ftp from zoo.toronto.edu in file pub/news.txt.Z.  As
above, FTP during their peak hours (12h00-17h00 Eastern) is not encouraged.)

977   Kantor, B.; Lapsley, P.  Network News Transfer Protocol.  1986 
      February; 27 p. (Format: TXT=55062 bytes)

976   Horton, M.R.  UUCP mail interchange format standard.  1986 February; 
      12 p. (Format: TXT=26814 bytes)

822   Crocker, D.  Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text messages.  
      1982 August 13; 47 p. (Format: TXT=109200 bytes)  (Obsoletes RFC 733)

Online copies of RFCs are available via FTP or Kermit from NIC.DDN.MIL as 
rfc:rfc####.txt or rfc:rfc####.ps (#### is the RFC number without leading 
zeroes).

Additionally, RFCs may be requested through electronic mail from the
with a subject line of "RFC ####" for text versions or a subject line
of "RFC ####.PS" for PostScript versions.  To obtain the RFC index,
the subject line of your message should read "RFC index".

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