Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!udel!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!uflorida!novavax!twwells!bill
From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Cancelling articles (was Re: Signature lines, this is going too far!)
Message-ID: <1989Aug26.213711.16326@twwells.com>
Date: 26 Aug 89 21:37:11 GMT
References: <428.24E71AB9@tlsi.FIDONET.ORG> <1348@abaa.UUCP> <30748@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1989Aug20.025847.3430@twwells.com> <1563@abaa.UUCP> <14580@bfmny0.UUCP>
Organization: None, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Lines: 34

In article <14580@bfmny0.UUCP> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes:
: Well, ANOTHER lesson for new users is that when you realize after posting
: something that you shouldn't have posted it, you can CANCEL your posting
: rather than creating a big second posting apologizing for the first one.
: In "rn" the "C" key does the trick - with other newsreaders check the
: documentation.

Much to my great dismay, it seems that many installations are set up
so that cancellations do not work. Why, I don't know. I do know that
my standard installation of rn does *not* allow me to cancel articles.
Maybe I screwed something up or maybe there is something incompatible
in the various pieces of software I use.

(Why haven't I fixed the problem? Well, mine's a one person machine;
in the rare case I want to cancel something, I either edit the file
in place or just delete it.)

Whatever, I've often found that when someone posts a followup to an
article instead of a cancel, they tried to cancel the article but
weren't able to. Or they just didn't know about cancelling an article.

I suggest that one should send a polite note telling the "offender"
of the ability to cancel messages; if they are the victim of
improperly installed software, it will do no harm, and if they didn't
know about cancelling an article they will likely be grateful to
learn.

Note also that, since cancelling an article does not guarantee that
no one has read the article, a _short_ posting apologizing for a
*very* egregious posting might not be out of line.

---
Bill                    { uunet | novavax | ankh | sunvice } !twwells!bill
bill@twwells.com