Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: sys file entries for CNEWS
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 91 19:35:54 GMT
Message-ID: <1991Mar23.193554.25944@looking.on.ca>
References: <1991Mar18.170511.6535@st_nik!swindon.ingr.com> <1991Mar19.224950.4653@zoo.toronto.edu> <449@skyking.UUCP>

One thing for sure, the "/all" convention that C news allows, while convenient,
has destroyed the usefulness of the distribution header.

Used to be that you could use the distribution header to restrict the
distribution of an article posted to a wide-ranging group, ie. I could
do a news.software.b posting just in Ontario.

No longer.  In recent times I have posted some rec.humor.funny messages
with distributions like "uw" (local school) and "ont" and gotten replies
from all over the globe.

Yes, "all" is convenient, if you are feeding a true sub-leaf that is in
every single domain you are in.   But the convenience has caused sys files
to be sloppily written everywhere.


I strongly suggest that C news remove "all" as a valid distribution field.
Force the people with the sloppy files to fix them if they upgrade.  It will
never become perfect again, due to those who don't upgrade, but it's a start.


Better still, adopt the NewsClip convention of a hierarchy of distributions,
each one with a numeric value.   This allows people to specify all
distributions greater or lesser than a specified one.    Thus to another site
in Ontario, you might feed "ont and above" which would include "can", "world"
and the fake-distributions of "comp", "rec" etc. which shouldn't exist but
some twizots use.

You would have to hand code any unusual distributions, such as ones that
don't belong in a hierarchy, or which you get but don't belong to.  (ie.
Buffalo people get "ont", we get "wny" (western new york).
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473