> On Mon, 9 Mar 1998, Charles Macdonald wrote:
> > What I would like to suggest is that someone set up a special news server
> > just for FAQ distribution purposes.
>
> This should not be needed. Articles should *not* takes days to get
> anywhere. If someone is connected to half a dozen uucp sites or something
> then perhaps an article will take a couple of days to get out but as soon
> as an article hits an internet connected site it should be around the
> world in seconds.
>
> If articles are not reaching the RTFM server then the problem is either at
> the poster's night (or immediate upsteam sites) or a rtfm. The bits in
> between have more than enough connectivity.
True it should NOT be needed, but the empirical evedence sugests
otherwise... My ISP using a fairly good set up, watched over by a
couple of real unix gurus. The last posting session when I posted my two
faqs and Karens 10 resulted in the files reaching MIT over a 4 day
period. The ones I looked at went from Achilles, to magma.ca (another
ISP in Ottawa) to istar.ca and then each one took various routes to
stragle in over the four days. Some came to MIT from Kodak, others from
BBNplanet and I think there was another route. Several others on this
maillist have reported the same experience over the last six months.
I think the main problem may be x-posting filters that do not take the
naswers policies into account. No FAQ is posted to less than three
groups, most to 6 or more. A dedicated *.answers server could ignore the
number of x-postings becasue it could check for "approved" posts from a
database.
> > (years ago when the net was
> > young, I remember someone at DEC actually used to keep track of the most
> > popular relay sites, and news admins would try to get a high ranking as a
> > matter of pride) The list above is slightly skewed from my view of usenet
> > of course.
>
> See:
>
> http://www.freenix.fr/top1000/
>
> Often refered to as the news.software.nntp pissing contest.
Thanks - Another link to add to my box of tricks..
> --
> Simon Lyall. | Looking for Work | Mail: simon@darkmere.gen.nz
> "To stay awake all night adds a day to your life" - Stilgar | MT.
... But its so hard on the eyelids ....8->
Charles MacDonald Stittsville Ontario cmacd@achilles.net
--- Just beyond the fringe ---
<a href="http://www.achilles.net/~cmacd/">homepage</a>
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