Xref: utzoo news.admin:11593 news.software.b:6448 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!ox.com!mudos!mju From: mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b Subject: Re: Is the "ME:" entry in news/sys really needed? Message-ID: Date: 23 Dec 90 16:48:00 GMT References: <3131@papaya.bbn.com> Organization: The Programmers' Pit Stop, +1 313 665 2832 Lines: 31 rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) writes: > B2.11 and Cnews both support the a site named "ME" in the sys file as the > localhost, defining what groups the site accepts. Is it really needed? > Doesn't the active file tell you what newsgroups you receive? I suppose > it could be used for checking distributions, right? How important is it, > really? It's very important for sites that don't receive a full feed. Let's say that I am one of those sites (since I am). I want to be able to crosspost messages to newsgroups that I don't receive, mostly so I don't get invalid newsgroup errors when I followup to a crossposted article. This means that I have to have an active file with most, if not all, of the groups in mainstream Usenet. However, if I have all these groups in my active file, articles that come in crossposted between groups I receive and groups I don't will be saved locally in all the groups, not just the ones I receive. Even though the article is linked between the groups instead of copied, thus conserving disk space, it creates the appearance to the user that this machine is fed groups that we don't get. This isn't a *large* problem, but it can confuse the user to no end, because they see only a part of the group. I don't really think that a ME: line is very difficult to keep in the code, and it does make life easier for some sysadmins. Why bother to take it out? -- Marc Unangst | mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us | "Bus error: passengers dumped" ...!umich!leebai!mudos!mju |