Xref: utzoo news.software.b:5131 news.admin:10030
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From: flee@guardian.cs.psu.edu (Felix Lee)
Newsgroups: news.software.b,news.admin
Subject: Re: Followup Containment
Message-ID: <Fy_r*.$@cs.psu.edu>
Date: 15 Jul 90 14:27:20 GMT
References: <37429@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1990Jul12.201422.883@csense.uucp>
Sender: news@cs.psu.edu (Usenet)
Organization: Penn State Computer Science
Lines: 26

>Forget the message. Force the followup into one and only one newsgroup,
>as appropriate.

The hard part is the "as appropriate".

Some versions of B News will automatically add a "Followup-To:" line
to cross-posted articles so that followups default to one newsgroup.
This can make it terribly difficult to follow a discussion.

One example is the "ETA saga" discussion, where the Newsgroups line
mutated among comp.sys.super, comp.sys.cdc, comp.unix.cray, and
comp.arch.  comp.arch is where I saw the start of it, but I had a hard
time trying to find the rest when it shifted away from comp.arch.

And then there was the time I saw discussions about NULL happening in
parallel in three newsgroups at the same time, all of them diverging
and converging on the same issues, all entirely distinct threads.

This is likely to get worse, with events like the splitting of
comp.sys.mac and comp.sys.ibm.  Topics that don't properly belong to a
single newsgroup should be allowed to roam freely.

Rather than trying to limit the diversity of Usenet, why not work at
building better newsreader programs?
--
Felix Lee	flee@cs.psu.edu