Path: utzoo!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!shadooby!samsung!uunet!bfmny0!tneff From: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: Just how useful is crossposting? Message-ID: <14915@bfmny0.UU.NET> Date: 14 Nov 89 15:52:27 GMT References: <47326@looking.on.ca> Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) Lines: 20 Summary: Expires: Sender: Followup-To: One approach would be to require news admin approval for any article crossposted to more than, say, 3 groups (a configurable option). Where newsgroups are efficiently orthogonal, a little crossposting can be terrific. For instance I just crossposted a question about the AT&T 6386 WGS Unix box to comp.sys.att and comp.unix.i386. I could have posted two separate articles if crossposting didn't exist, but people who read both groups would have had to read the question twice. Crossposting is a tool that can be used or misused. I don't think it's fair to punish those who know what it's for, just because some silly people don't. It would be better to put some reasonable limits on it, like admin approval as mentioned above. It's a fair bet that anyone with a legitimate need for appropriate crossposting will either have approval privileges him- or herself, or be about ten seconds away from the person who does. It's the C.C. back bench twits you want to discourage ever so slightly. :-) -- "UNIX should be used :: Tom Neff or as an adjective." -- AT&T :: ...uunet!bfmny0!tneff (UUCP only)