paragraph definition problems

[Joerg <nospam@nospam.org>]

Hello,

I'm having problems with the definition of paragraphs in emacs 21.2.93.1. It
is important for me because I think explicit fill uses that definition when
filling.

In the description of the paragraph-start variable it says that the given
regexp should match lines that start OR separate paragraphs, and that it is
matched against the text at the left margin.

The standard for that option is "[ \t\n\f]" (at least in my version). If I
interpret that correctly it means "every line starting with a space, a tab,
a new line or a line feed" in the context of paragraph-start.

Let's say I've got the following text:

This is a paragraph.
 This should be a new paragraph because of the space at the beginning.

Now, if I press M-h to select the paragraph in the second line, the line
above is also selected, in spite of the space in the beginning of the second
one. Also M-q fills those "paragraphs" together.

Thus, I got the feeling that I can change the paragraph-start and
paragraph-separator variables randomly, and the behaviour doesn't change.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

Regards,
 Jörg