Path: utzoo!utstat!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!texbell!ssbn!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: New News (not GNU News) (was Re: Our friend, the GMT date.)
Message-ID: <57758@looking.on.ca>
Date: 6 Dec 89 23:11:49 GMT
References: <4364@helios.ee.lbl.gov> <14810@well.UUCP> <1989Dec3.210413.27043@psuvax1.cs.psu.edu> <56239@looking.on.ca> <1989Dec5.142032.7706@talos.uucp> <1601@intercon.com> <1989Dec6.031329.13569@utzoo.uucp> <1603@intercon.com>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 33
Class: discussion

There is one useful concept that the current structure makes difficult.

I see three classes of article in a newsgroup.

The first class I would call "permanent articles" -- articles that are expected
to stay around forever, but might be updated in place.  These would be things
like "commonly asked questions" and "about this newsgroup" etc.

The second class would be semi-permanent articles.  These would be the
roots of popular, recurring discussions.  Such as "Blade Runner" in
rec.arts.sf-lovers.

The third class is ordinary ephemeral articles like we have today.

To support these classes, particular the semi-permanent ones, the current
system would require that very low message numbers be kept around.

That mucks things a lot, since it would make the first number in the
active file a waste of time, and require lots of work to check for articles
that have gone.

For the permanent articles, the concept of article numbers outside the
regular space would be fine -- negative article numbers, for example.

But to do the semi-permanents, there is no easy solution, unless we can
somehow move their article numbers.  But that doesn't sit will with current
schemes.   Although once a s-p article reaches the expiry date for
an ephemeral article, it could probably be moved without trouble.

But such solutions would be kludges, and it would be nice to design a system
that supports this from the ground up.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473