Weeelll, what else can you say when someone else claims that everybody
with Usenet has web? Heck, I don't even run TCP/IP let alone NNTP,
but I still have my own Usenet server (operating since 1986)... At least
I'm not running B News 2.10 anymore ;-)
[Okay, okay, I also run one of the largest NNTP server infrastructures
outside of an ISP ;-)]
} My take is that there are several groups of users.
Ditto.
} An ideal system for distributing information should allow the same basic
} information to be viewed by web, mail, and (perhaps) usenet, to cover as
} many users as posible all around the world. Further there should be simple
} and clear mechanisims to allow/disallow mirroring to take place both to
} distribute the load, and further to allow the creation of local
} respositories in places like remote universities that can not have 24 hour
} net connectivity.
I think one must recognize that despite technology, Usenet is actually
becoming even less of an ideal medium (it never was in the first place)
for transmitting multi-media/HTML/what have you. On the other hand,
apart from Email, Usenet probably has about the longest reach of any
of the technologies available. Further, given the fact that many FAQs
are becoming much larger ("maturing" ;-) through inevitable addons,
that posting full FAQs is becoming rather unwieldy. And finally, due
to spam, spew, and other network abuses, massive crossposting or even
large numbers of FAQs spitting out sequentially from the same server
is becoming problematic[*].
FAQ authors should back away from even thinking about posting
HTML/pictures/binaries, by preference putting these up on web servers.
For that which is posted to Usenet, it should be either plain-text
or the RFC1123-(digest)-ish FAQ format I publish in one of my FAQs, _or_,
make the switch to posting pointers only. FAQ posters should start
reconsidering their posting strategies, and try to reduce the number of
newsgroups they hit - keep it under 5 (including *.answers crossposts), _and_
keep the number of parts they post preferably below 5, and _definately_
under 10 (cleanfeed and spamhippo counts usage of NNTP-Posting-Host,
and will start dropping stuff on the floor when it exceeds some configurable
threshold (I think defaults around 15/hour)).
In fact, I think most people would be better served with posting only
VFAQs (Very Frequently Asked Questions ;-) which are designed to
hit the top 5-10 "items", and simply point off to other servers (by email
or web) for the more complete version. The minimal VFAQ consists of
not much more than:
Question: how in heck do I find out more about <X>?
Answer: See http:<Y>
[*] hipcrime/floodbot etc. moderated forgeries with fingerprints "similar"
to some FAQs (sorry Era!), per-posting cross-posting limits,
Cleanfeed/Spamhippo by-NNTP-Posting-Host limiters - I wonder if anyone
has figured out whether Cleanfeed is nuking RTFM server postings wholesale?
My own Cleanfeed installation nuked my own FAQ postings until I programmed
around it. :-(
-- Chris Lewis, CyberSheriff (CBC says I am, so it must be true!) It's not just anyone who has a Starship cruiser class named after them! For more information on spam, see http://spam.abuse.net/spam Fight spam, support Rep. Chris Smith's TCPA extension: http://www.cauce.org
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