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Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!linac!att!pacbell.com!ucsd!nosc!crash!simpact!jeh
From: jeh@dcs.simpact.com
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b,news.software.anu-news
Subject: Misuse, confusion, re "Distribution:" header?
Message-ID: <1991Apr29.142220.2308@dcs.simpact.com>
Date: 29 Apr 91 21:22:20 GMT
Organization: Simpact Associates, San Diego CA
Lines: 47

I was recently checking the 'junk' newsgroup here, looking for articles that
were junked but shouldn't have been, and found lots of them :-( .  The culprit
in each case was the Distribution: header.  Here is an example:

> X-NEWS: simpact junk: 1122
> Relay-Version: VMS News - V6.0-3 14/03/90 VAX/VMS V5.2; site dcs.simpact.com
> Path: simpact!crash!ncr-sd!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!cse!evax!lindahl
> Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
> Subject: X man pages on the SUN
> Message-ID: <LINDAHL.91Apr27012548@arrisun3.utarl.edu>
> From: lindahl@arrisun3.utarl.edu (Charlie S. Lindahl)
> Date: 27 Apr 91 06:25:48 GMT
> Sender: usenet@cse.uta.edu (USENET Dummy account for GNUS and TheNews)
> Distribution: comp
                ^^^^
> Organization: Automation and Robotics Research Institute, U Texas @ Arlington
> Lines: 59

Our news config files are set up to state that we accept comp.windows.x (all of
comp, in fact) and that we accept distributions world,usa,ca,la, and sdnet . 
(los angeles being close enough to here so as not to matter)  I wasn't aware
that it was common practice to put newsgroup top-level-hierarchy names into the
"Distribution:" header. 

To make matters worse, many of the missing articles have complete newsgroup 
names in the Distribution: header, e.g. "comp.windows.x" .  

For news.admin, news.software.b readers:  What is going on here?  I thought
"Distribution" headers were strictly for geographical distribution names. 
I know that in the past there was confusion between hierarchy names and
distribution names, ie they shared the same 'namespace' because they were
declared in the same place in the news config files.  A recent update to the
VMS news package, "ANU NEWS", fixed this... and we started rejecting articles
with headers like those described above.  

For news.software.anu-news readers:  ANU NEWS should probably be fixed so that
if an item arrives with a "distribution" field that is acceptable according to
the systems file newsgroup filter (but not necessarily the distribution filter),
the item will be accepted.  In the meantime, I suppose I can go edit the 
distribution filter to say that we (and our news neighbors!) are in 
distributions comp,news,rec, etc., in addition to world,usa, etc.   However, 
this seems counterproductive to the recent separation of newsgroup and 
distribution filters.  

	--- Jamie Hanrahan (x1116), Simpact Associates, San Diego CA
Internet:  jeh@dcs.simpact.com, or if that fails, jeh@crash.cts.com
Uucp:  ...{crash,scubed,decwrl}!simpact!jeh