Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen
From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: Star Goose Docs
Message-ID: <3279@sixhub.UUCP>
Date: 23 Feb 91 04:02:46 GMT
References: <59578@aurs01.UUCP> <2744@sparko.gwu.edu> <59580@aurs01.UUCP> <3250@sixhub.UUCP> <1991Feb21.124047.27606@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>
Reply-To: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: *IX Public Access UNIX, Schenectady NY
Lines: 38

In article <1991Feb21.124047.27606@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> tcs@mailer.jhuapl.edu (Carl Schelin) writes:

| So the assumption is that if I don't see anything that I sent in, it got
| thrown away?

  Never. If I don't use something I'm very careful to tell the submitter
why I didn't. If you don't see it in a month or so then you might ask if
I got it. When I take things out of the first hopper and determine that
all the parts came in I send a first thank you. When the review is done
and the item goes into the actual queue ready to post I send another.
But if the thank you bounces... tough. I just can't take time to chase
anyone based on the mail addresses I get. If the header or the .sig
aren't useful I forget it.

  Stuff is running 2-5 weeks because of how long it takes to review. Did
the first thank you have a paragraph about uuencoders which use blanks
instead of ` so the trailing blanks get eaten in mailing? Did I get five
parts with no part numbers in the header? Did I get a load of uuencoded
SOMETHING with no clue in the first message as to what this is? Or a
self unpacking binary? If any of these things are true then it goes in a
"slush pile" and I do a few a day. The ones which come in with a
description, part numbers, clean encoding... those go out faster.

  We used to have a problem with nothing going out, now we have a
problem with more coming in than going out. We are staying in the top
ten groups for volume every month, so I guess the readers are getting a
fair share, just the posters are getting delayed. Since there's a step
which is currently being taken between machines via floppy disk, I could
lose a disk full of submissions and have no fallback. After I write it
and read it back the submissions are blown away from the machine which
gets the stuff first.

  It could be worse. Look at comp.sources.unix.
-- 
bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen)
    sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX
    moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me