Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!tektronix!psueea!parsely!bucket!leonard
From: leonard@bucket.UUCP (Leonard Erickson)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Dynamic feeds (was Re: Why not just eliminate  ..... )
Message-ID: <1722@bucket.UUCP>
Date: 23 Oct 89 07:56:45 GMT
References: <817@pmafire.UUCP> <725@lakart.UUCP>
Organization: Rick's Home-Grown UNIX; Portland, OR.
Lines: 28


Everyone seems to be complaining that "but that means it'll be X days
before I get a group I just subscribed to" under the proposed system.
Excuse me? What do you think happens *now* if you want a group that your
site isn't currently getting? Hmmm?

You ask the newsadmin to get it. If he agrees that it's a good idea he
has to ask your feed to get it. This may take *longer* than Brad's idea
would. And if your feed doesn't get it, then you move everything up
one level, but the delaays at each level *will* be longer!

As far as I can tell this "problem" will only occurwhen you subscribe
to a group not currently wanted by anybody at your site *or it's leaf
nodes*. I'd say this coulxd handled by having the newsreader tell you
that your site isn't currently getting that group and that it may take
a while before articles arrive. Say by having the process that makes the
"master" .newsrc mail a message to the requestor. If implemented properly
this could propogate up the chain if you neded to go up more than one
link to get the group. That way you'd be kept posted on the status of
your request. :-)

For that matter, it'd also work for notifying you that a site refused
to carry/forward a group.
-- 
Leonard Erickson		...!tektronix!reed!percival!bucket!leonard
CIS: [70465,203]
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools.
Let's start with typewriters." -- Solomon Short