Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!bbn.com!papaya.bbn.com!rsalz
From: rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Sys file question
Message-ID: <3257@litchi.bbn.com>
Date: 6 Feb 91 16:03:06 GMT
References: <1991Feb1.112306.3072@daimi.aau.dk> <1991Feb1.164242.29384@zoo.toronto.edu> <3254@litchi.bbn.com> <1991Feb5.011155.21077@ora.com>
Organization: BBN Systems and Technology, Inc.
Lines: 24

I said 
>   If I were writing a news transport system, here's what I'd do:
>           [...]
>	   -Ignore the ME entry in a sys file EXCEPT for the Distributions
>	    field.

Ambar says:
>Actually, the fact that the ME: entry *is* consulted when deciding
>whether to accept or junk an article has saved us from such
>net.avalanches such as the 150 psu.<stuff> newsgroups created by Biff.
I guess I forgot to add that I would force all newgroup/rmgroup operations
to be performed manually... :-)

>Applying the distributions subfield would be useful to people who want
>to enforce what distributions they recieve, but there doesn't seem to
>be a crying need for it.
Yeah, well, I think it would be easy enough to do.

It seems to me that newsgroups are created or destroyed very rarely when compared
to article flow.  If you forced them to be done manually I think it would be quite
reasonable to write a program that depended on hashings of the sys and active files.
-- 
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