Path: utzoo!mnetor!geac!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!rpi.edu!tale
From: tale@turing.cs.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Conversion to C news
Message-ID: <-0{%D&$@rpi.edu>
Date: 4 Sep 90 03:53:35 GMT
References: <138@tdatirv.UUCP> <1990Aug31.155234.8788@zoo.toronto.edu>
	<!7`%+A^@rpi.edu> <1990Sep3.233231.1967@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Computer Science, Troy NY
Lines: 60

Before I speak on this any further let me make it clear that I prefer
C News methods to doing it in all of the cases cited here.  That is,
if we could make all of the systems behave one way or the other then I
would rather see C News policies.

In <1990Sep3.233231.1967@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
   In article <!7`%+A^@rpi.edu> tale@turing.cs.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence):
   >... a few examples of what C News will accept and batch for
   >redistribution: 
   >
   >o articles without a Date: header.

   Note that "enforcement" will mean "drop it on the floor if it's
   illegal"; we think it unwise, in general, to attempt to return bad
   articles by mail.

Well, another policy could be just adding the missing header in this
particular case.  I personally don't feel screwing a Date: header with
the current date into it would be so terrible except in cases of truly
munged articles.  I don't know how common this is anyway; the articles
from Syracuse had other problems indicating that they tried to just
plug-in Jean-Francois Lamy's inews with minimal or incorrect hacking
and then just left it at that.

   >o articles with a header like:
   >  "Sender: news@zip.eecs.umich.edu (\nNot Available)"
   >  where \n is a newline.

   Ultimate responsibility for correctness of headers must rest with
   the originating site or gateway.

Oh, I agree VERY much.  _However_ such things shouldn't give so many
sites the shits.  The fact remains, in fact what I consider the most
important point of my original article but which was elided in the
followup, that admins are seeing the consequences now of having B News
and C News systems talk to each other when they are supposedly 100%
transport compatible.  They are not so and the errors are having
various effects from long logs to extra burned cycles to extra admin
time trying to fix up some of these problems when they crop up.

In the case of the above header, incidentally, I corresponded with an
admin at zip and I guess she has fixed the problem by now.

   >o articles with a "local" distribution.

   This is simply a reflection of not considering "local" to be a magic word,
   which we think is a correct decision, if only because it's so hard to
   define just what it should mean.

Again, I agree.  However the B News sites reject them.  Fortunately
this is easy to avoid from _my_ end.

So basically my points are: "In general, B News and C News are 100%
transport compatible" is not that accurate except for the ambiguous
floating disclaimer "in general"; and that it would be nice to see B
News become a little more flexible as far as what it accepts.  It is
not that I am cutting down C News and claiming that these are
insidious bugs -- I like C News very much.
--
   (setq mail '("tale@cs.rpi.edu" "tale@ai.mit.edu" "tale@rpitsmts.bitnet"))