Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!uwm.edu!rpi!tale From: tale@rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: Why do I get junk newsgroups? Message-ID: Date: 16 Feb 91 09:11:49 GMT References: <20752@teda.UUCP> Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Computer Science, Troy NY Lines: 50 Nntp-Posting-Host: cs.rpi.edu In article <20752@teda.UUCP> mikel@teda.UUCP (Mikel Lechner) writes: Is this some new "feature" in C news (yes, I'm still running Bnews), or is it common practive to put "all" in all your "sys" file entries. It is a feature of C News, one which I have mixed feelings about. It has really nothing to do with putting "all" in the line though, at least no more than putting "misc" in, for the case of misc.sheep which you cite. Forwarding is determined based on the Newsgroups: of an article, not where it is filed. Since my system does not list this newsgroup in its active file, these messages end up in "junk" and go no further. It seems like a mistake to pass on articles to bogus newsgroups. Yes and no. Henry and Geoff will maintain that it is a feature which helps the propagation of valid new groups, and this is a reasonable point which I appreciate. It also leads to greater traffic in groups carried by very few people, but who manage to communicate (?) with each other through the junk spools of intermediate sites, which is a questionable feature. Additionally, it contributes to propagation of bogus groups by incipient seepage; I believe that C News (as much as I love it) is the primary reason that anyone other than Berkeley is carrying a newsgroup named "comp.dcom.lans.novell". Again, however, some people would argue that such is a feature. I can even side with _part_ of their argument, but not with the way it leads to communication given current software. This perpetuates problems like continued posting to "comp.sys.ibm.pc" which was replaced months ago with "comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc". I am inclined to agree. Another problem here is that even on C News sites which refile such a group, it is still simple to post to the group which is being refiled. I first became aware of this when one of my users posted to comp.os.os2 despite the fact that I have been refiling it to comp.os.os2.misc since the reorg. There are two possible changes; a) rewrite the header in inews to substitute correct names for the refiled groups or b) give an error as with the n or x flag. The latter is much easier to implement. This whole thing, and newsgroup naming itself, is something which will should matter much, much less if the network news software developers have their way with dissociating groups from their current implementation, and foster a new concept of distribution. In this next generation of article conferencing I would expect that very large sites like mine would still have something like comp.dcom.lans.novell spontaneously generate, but it would be less of a problem than with the way it happens now. Personally I have yet to see a plan in which I have confidence, but I have a lot of respect for the people who are working toward such things. -- (setq mail '("tale@cs.rpi.edu" "tale@ai.mit.edu" "tale@rpitsmts.bitnet"))