Xref: utzoo news.admin:10351 news.software.b:5442 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sun!amdcad!hobbes.amd.com!cdr From: cdr@hobbes.amd.com (Carl Rigney) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b Subject: Re: new control messages Message-ID: <1990Aug12.054405.27061@amd.com> Date: 12 Aug 90 05:44:05 GMT References: <38053@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <9008100218.AA23766@mindcrf.mindcraft.com> <38081@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: news@amd.com (Network News) Organization: Advanced Micro Devices; Sunnyvale, CA Lines: 48 In article <38081@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> jbuck@galileo.berkeley.edu (Joe Buck) writes: >In article <9008100218.AA23766@mindcrf.mindcraft.com>, >karish@mindcrf.UUCP writes: >> And it would be practically impossible to add a new control message >> to the currently-recognized set. > >It already is. Let's say you wanted to add a new control message called >"link", to be used as follows: > >Control: link newsgroup > >This control message would install a cross-post "after the fact" so a >previously posted article would appear in the new group. That's an inappropriate use for control messages, and an invitation to chaos. Instead just add a newsgroup alt.approved (say) and put hooks in the newsreader so someone can post a message to alt.approved that lists the message-ids of all the messages he liked in this session (listing one message-id per message would be horrible) and another hook so someone else can follow those message-ids. People who don't want to deal with that just don't carry the new newsgroup. One new newsgroup, instead of hundreds. I'm not saying that even that method of implementation is a good idea. While I'd certainly like to be able to read all the articles a John Mashey or Larry Wall found insightful without wading through the noise, its a fairly major change to the way the Net works now. Control messages should be relatively rare. Things which are not rare should not be control messages. Its perfectly OK for a news administrator interface to turn a local Cancel into cancel or ask the admin what he meant; its completely bogus for news software to guess at what someone *might* have meant; there are too many ways to make a mistake! Properly designed software (which I believe Cnews to be) should log errors and send a notification to someone that there was a problem; not-quite-so-well designed software sends an error message for each error (flood that mailbox!), poorly designed software ignores errors, and horribly designed software dies on errors. -- Carl Rigney cdr@amdcad.AMD.COM {ames decwrl pyramid sun uunet}!amdcad!cdr "Its just news."