Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!inco!alembic!csu
From: csu@alembic.acs.com (Dave Mack)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: News software (was: Thoughts on the new-group creation process)
Message-ID: <1989Oct7.185952.16953@alembic.acs.com>
Date: 7 Oct 89 18:59:52 GMT
References: <4365@utastro.UUCP> <34795@apple.Apple.COM> <305@6sigma.UUCP> <1989Oct4.030208.22524@rpi.edu> <1989Oct4.153218.14076@ginger.acc.com> <5654@inco.UUCP> <1989Oct4.234355.3680@utstat.uucp>
Reply-To: csu@alembic.acs.com (Dave Mack)
Organization: Alembic Computer Services, McLean, VA
Lines: 30
UUCP-Path: uunet!inco!alembic!csu

In article <1989Oct4.234355.3680@utstat.uucp> geoff@utstat.uucp (Geoff Collyer) writes:
>Dave Mack:
>> Wrong, at least in news2.11 and C news. If an article is received with 
>> no valid news groups, it goes into junk and isn't broadcast to neighboring
>> sites, regardless of the Distribution field.
>
>This is false in the case of C news.  Articles may be filed in the
>control or junk pseudo-groups, but that has no effect on their
>distribution (see relaynews(8)).  Your active file may be missing some
>groups, while your neighbours have those groups in their active files.
>If you really want to drop articles in certain groups, and ignoring
>cross-posting for now, you must either write "!unwanted.group" in your
>sys file subscription list, or you must change the flags field of
>"unwanted.group" to "x" (see news(5)).

Urk! Sorry, I botched the sense of the test of okrefusal. I thought the
ST_DROPPED bit was getting set.

OK, so news2.11 junks articles with no valid newsgroups, C news passes
them on. I can see arguments in favor of each strategy. With news2.11,
it's possible to rmgroup a group and actually have it gradually disappear;
with Cnews, everything still circulates unless you take steps to squash
it in your sys file. On the other hand, with Cnews, a site has more
trouble blocking transmission of a legit group that it doesn't like.

Since I'm not overly concerned with newsgroup deletion but am concerned
with the maximum propagation of "real" newsgroups, I suggest that the
way C News does it is correct. Comments?

Dave Mack