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From: mesard@bbn.com (Wayne Mesard)
Newsgroups: alt.config,news.software.b
Subject: alt.sources / linking to existing articles
	(was Re: Text Compression Routine (Request))
Message-ID: <48495@bbn.COM>
Date: 20 Nov 89 04:21:59 GMT
References: <13891@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> <1989Nov20.005244.10096@rpi.edu>
Sender: news@bbn.COM
Reply-To: mesard@BBN.COM (Wayne Mesard)
Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 30

tale@pawl.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) writes:
>So, who's going to venture forth with the montly posting for
>alt.sources/alt.sources.d?

As one of this scheme's many proposers, I have one thing to say:

                        It won't work.

People unthinkingly reply to source articles.  People wander in and
out of groups (especially when they're looking for something).  People
just plain forget.

It's too bad the News software doesn't let you cross-post an article
after the fact.  (That way, a "moderator" of alt.sources.only could send
out "linkto" messages to cross-post alt.sources articles once s/he
decided they were really sources.)[*]

Failing that, if you folks are really that keen on have a sources only
alt group, what about that plan [I] proposed a while ago wherein someone
regularly posts message-ids of non-source articles, and code runs
locally to zap them out of your .newsrc file (and/or spool directory)?

[*] This could have other uses, too, for example a whole thread could be
moved to another group if someone decides that readers there would be
interested in it, as well.  And there are other digests groups (which is
what the long-contemplated a.s.o is) which could benefit from this
mechanism w/out increasing net.traffic significantly.

-- 
void *Wayne_Mesard();         Mesard@BBN.COM         BBN, Cambridge, MA