One more time: if netcom is the only site implementing such a policy,
changing FAQ posting policies is clearly *not* an appropriate response;
rather, netcom users need to take this up with their admins as a local
matter. The same holds if only a small set of sites have implemented
anti-crossposting policies.
However, if netcom's action reflects a spreading sentiment among
newsadmins that crossposting should be discouraged, then it is necessary
for FAQ authors as a group to take some more global action --- either
try to change that sentiment (or at least get an exemption for
news.answers postings), or change our own ways to live with the new
reality.
I still don't know which case we're dealing with. Not a lot of raw
data has shown up in this discussion.
Kent Landfield <kent@landfield.com> writes:
> [ a proposal for a lobbying letter to send to suspected sites ]
Something like this might be a good idea, but where do we send it?
I suggest that we really honestly ought to do some fact-finding,
and that means we ought to send a letter to pretty much every large
site and major forwarding site we can find.
Kent's draft doesn't seem to be phrased quite right for that; it sort
of implies that we think the recipient already is doing something we
don't like, whereas really we are going to have to send it out to a
lot of sites we haven't a clue about.
I think what we want to do is ask straight out:
* Do you currently have, or are you thinking of implementing,
any news administration policies intended to discourage cross-posting?
* If so, what number of newsgroups will you set as a limit, and what
action will you take against posts that exceed the limit? (Early
expiration, refusal to forward to other sites, refusal to store
locally at all...)
* Would you consider making an exemption for articles crossposted
into news.answers?
We could explain that we have heard that some sites are considering
such policies, and we want to find out whether Usenet FAQs are likely
to be materially affected. We should explain that news.answers'
charter encourages crossposting, and we should attach Pam's numbers
as a postscript.
regards, tom lane
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