Xref: utzoo news.sysadmin:3329 news.admin:10792 news.groups:24493 news.software.b:6008 news.misc:5533 news.newusers.questions:2983 Path: utzoo!utstat!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!sundc!texsun!csccat!egsner!mic!ernest!shibaya!afc From: afc@shibaya.lonestar.org (Augustine Cano) Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,news.admin,news.groups,news.software.b,news.misc,news.newusers.questions Subject: Cnews gone crazy? I'm supposed to delete almost 1/3 of my active file? Message-ID: <1990Oct16.235959.300@shibaya.lonestar.org> Date: 16 Oct 90 23:59:59 GMT Reply-To: afc@shibaya.lonestar.org (Augustine Cano) Organization: Multidisciplinary Designs Unlimited Lines: 34 After unbatching a particularly large number of news batches, cnews sent me a mail message with title: Problems with your active file, that instructed me to get rid of 195 news groups. After going through the list, this made no sense. Although some groups, such as alt.fan.BIFF and alt.bitch.pork, only take up bandwidth, in the destined for deletion list were also very popular and long-standing groups such as alt.bbs.waffle, alt.personals and alt.security, not to mention comp.lang.perl, rec.pyrotechnics, comp.text.tex, control and junk. If I remove junk, where will articles without a proper home go? Not only that, all the to. apparently have to go, this is insane. If I recall correctly, the voting process was carried out formally for at least rec.pyrotechnics, and my understanding is that the whole purpose of the alt.net is to be a less formal ALTernative. I checked the control group and saw only some newgroups, rmgroups, the gnu checkgroups, and some cancel
. After giving me all 195 commands to achieve this, I'm supposed to add 587 new groups from all kinds of remote local areas (such as are Stanford U. and Australia from Texas.) Is this supposed to happen like this or did I mis-configure something? If this is a globally sent command, what's the deal? It didn't appear in the control group. Or has cnews lost its mind? Or is somebody trying to eliminate valid news groups surreptitiously, in an official sounding manner? -- Augustine Cano INTERNET: afc@shibaya.lonestar.org UUCP: ...!{ernest,tsci,egsner}!shibaya!afc