# I'm not sure how to proceed on this, but suggest that the "rules" be
# modified to exempt the *.answers newsgroups from the "no more than 4
# crossposts" rule (i.e., not count them toward crossposting).
Certainly, *.answers shouldn't count toward the crossposting
limit. The people with the most power to change this are the
maintainers of INN, but I get the impression that INN is
pretty much completely braindead about special groups. It
doesn't exclude *.answers from being counted toward the
crossposting limit; it doesn't watchdog against posts with
news.admin.* in the Followup-To: header but not in the
Newsgroups: header; it allows news.answers to be matched
by a wildcard pattern in the expiry config file. These
are just the things I have noticed.
Actually, INN could stand a number of improvments; this
is just one of them. It also needs better multipost
detection heuristics (although markov chains would evade
even the best automated heuristics, but the markov
chains are mostly coming from certain select subnets
that can be blocked based on the feed path, if the
news admins are with it), among other things.
# My faq goes to rec.models.scale, rec.models.rc.water,
# rec.answers, and news.answers. I'm right there at
# the limit, and fear to post to another group, such
# as alt.answers.
#
# Thoughts?
In your case, your FAQ doesn't belong in alt.answers,
because it does not have a home group in the alt
heirarchy.
# It forces one to decide exactly which NGs
# are really revelant for the faq. ;-)
If I were a news admin, I would make darn
sure certain special groups are excluded from
the count and then set the maximum to 2 or
_maybe_ 3 at the absolute outside. Barring
special cases (most notably *.answers), there
is really never any excuse to post the same
message to more than three groups, ever.
Of course, this kind of limit is only of
any value if multiposts are systematically
quashed.
# Let's face it, Usenet is becoming somewhat
# of an Old Boys (and Girls :) Club. I have
# many friends who surf the web regularly, and
# I even consider some to be computer literate
# and net savvy, but they are totally clueless
# about such things as Usenet News.
Invariably, people who think they are net.savvy
and don't know about usenet also don't know
that there are different flavours of Unix
besides linux, what an RFC is, the significance
of various well-known ports, how to telnet
directly to a mail server, how DNS works, or
basically any other thing one would expect a
net guru to know.
# One friend of mine actually said "oh,
# that's too hard" when I said to go into
# Netscape and pull up "newsgroups". Sheesh!
Actually, I pretty much agree with him; Netscape's
mail/news client is more trouble than it's worth.
(Their browser, OTOH, I like, although I use the
unbranded releases.)
# Hah, I work in a factory... You should see
# the blank stares when I mention Usenet.
You want to see blank stares, talk about gopher.
# The problem is that it's not just throttled
# posting -- many news servers now refuse to
# *receive* articles with cross-posting over
# certain arbitrary limits, and almost always
# with no consideration for *.answers.
The problem here is the lack of consideration
for *.answers. nntp servers should be hardcoded
to not count *.answers against the admin-set
limit on the number of groups. Because *.answers
exist not to be read, but for reference, and
crossposting is pretty much the primary way
they receive articles.
Being crossposted to news.answers should also
protect a post from being expired by any rule
of expiry not specifically targeted at
news.answers posts. The news admin shouldn't
*need* to except news.answers from expiry; it
should be excepted by default, and he should
have to specifically say if he wants to
expire it.
# Something about tilting at windmills comes to mind. As
# you've discovered, most ISPs are very little concerned
# with Usenet now.
That's because most ISPs are targeting end users. There
will always be ISPs that target more knowledge-enabled
persons, however, because there will always be people
who understand how the net works. They just aren't the
only ones on the net anymore.
# OTOH, precisely because most ISPs now outsource Usenet, it is mostly
# under the control of a few providers. This raises the interesting
# possibility that approaching a few of these major providers (such as
# Supernews and Usenetserver and a couple of others) might have major
# effects.
Try approaching the people who maintain the software
they use to make it work.
# (while we're at it, it would be useful if the ISPs retained the
# >*.answers groups for at least a month - AT&T keeps articles for 1
# >week!)
#
# Now that's really bad.
They probably just slapped a default rule on all
groups and forgot to except *.answers. But they
shouldn't have to remember to except that; it
should be excepted from wildcard rules, because
the only situation I can think of when I'd want
news.answers to expire the same as everything
else, is if I wanted a complete archive and
expired nothing. (The mind boggles.)
# Usenetserver keeps text groups for three months,
# binaries for less than a week. Either AT&T isn't
# distinguishing between text and binary newsgroups,
# or more likely they simply aren't buying enough disk.
Many text groups can reasonably be kept for
just a week or two. The problem is that they
forgot to except *.answers
# If the current de facto limit on crossposted newsgroups is
# really four, it sounds like it's just about impossible to post
# an FAQ list to more than one "home" newsgroup any more.
You can post to two if they are in the same heirarchy.
# One of these days I've got to adjust the Newsgroups: line of
# the comp.lang.c FAQ list. I'm getting the impression that
# lots of newsgroup readers aren't seeing it, and it's currently
# crossposted to six newsgroups, which is surely the reason why.
Probably should be comp.lang.c, comp.lang.c.moderated,
comp.answers, and news.answers. Although I can understand
the temptation to also put it in C++ groups, a pointer
post might be more appropriate there.
# > (while we're at it, it would be useful if the
# > ISPs retained the *.answers groups for at least a month -
#
# That it would.
I seem to be fortunate to have a sensible ISP. My
mail service delays are measured in seconds in
no more than two digits, I get a week's warning
whenever there's a planned network outage, and
news.answers posts are available for a month.
-- jonadab
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