Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!sci34hub!gary
From: gary@sci34hub.UUCP (Gary Heston)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Missing Persons Newsgroup
Summary: Here's something we could consider....
Message-ID: <412@sci34hub.UUCP>
Date: 23 Nov 89 01:52:33 GMT
References: <2232@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <36668@apple.Apple.COM>
Lines: 35

In article <36668@apple.Apple.COM>, chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
= >I see occasional postings by people trying to locate other people. Why
= >not create a new newsgroup called misc.missing.persons just for this
= >purpose?
 
= you mean, like soc.net-people, but different?
 
= Chuq Von Rospach   <+>    Editor,OtherRealms    <+>   Member SFWA/ASFA
= chuq@apple.com   <+>   CI$: 73317,635   <+>   [This is myself speaking]
 
= All it takes is one thorn to make you forget the dozens of roses on the bush.

How about a control message, instead? It could scan the sites' /etc/passwd
file, looking for the "missing person"'s real name (the login id would
probably not be a good thing to check for, if you don't know where they
are, you probably don't know it, either). Matching could be done on the
last name, then the first, leaving out middle initials. That would allow
a higher probability of a match (not to mention more responses...).
Then, a email message could be returned to the originator, including
the name field from /etc/passwd with the system name (allowing eyeball
matching on middle initials). 

Then, we could expand the concept to allow wildcards in the searched-
for name.... think how many responsed you'd get if you posted
Find-Person-Name: *

Except for the deluge of mail possible from that last line, it's
almost plausible...so I won't crosspost this to rec.humor, yet.

:-)

-- 
    Gary Heston     { uunet!sci34hub!gary  }    System Mismanager
   SCI Technology, Inc.  OEM Products Department  (i.e., computers)
      Hestons' First Law: I qualify virtually everything I say.