Xref: utzoo news.admin:14395 news.software.b:7782
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!dsuvax!ghelmer
From: ghelmer@dsuvax.uucp (Guy Helmer)
Subject: Re: Really funny jokes being missed
Message-ID: <1991May17.170033.17759@dsuvax.uucp>
Organization: Dakota State University
References: <282FD655.3D2A@tct.com> <5ukZ24w164w@mantis.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 17 May 1991 17:00:33 GMT

In <5ukZ24w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes:

>chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>> True, C News drops articles on the floor.  But it logs having done so,
>> and it notifies the Usenet administrator in the output of newsdaily.

>So what the hell use is that?  None of those Usenet administrators told *ME*
>about it, and I'm the one who has to fix my software.

>> True, it is sometimes possible to deliver articles that do not conform
>> to the relevant RFCs.  But if that were done, of what value would the
>> RFCs be?

>If an article can be corrected to conform, then it should be, and should then
>be delivered.

Henry has pointed out many times that it is difficult to correct
problems in an article.  Direct human intervention is essentially
the only way to fix incorrectly formed headers.

>If an article cannot be corrected, then either
>1) It should be dropped and an attempt made to notify the article originator,
>or
>2) It should be passed on anyway in the hope that the next site will have
>   better software and be able to correct it; and optionally an attempt
>   should be made to notify the article originator.

No.  You better not pass on the article, or you're part of the problem.
Attempts to notify the article originator would be a bad thing to do, too.
A site producing news may not receive mail or there may not be a path
for a message to follow back to the sender.

Worse yet, if you attempt to both pass on the article and notify the sender,
you and everyone running software like yours will clog the net with tons, er,
megabytes, of useless messages.  Should the originator be unreachable via
mail, the net will bite it.

And what about a message that's had it's headers munged by a single machine
running junky software?  A person would be deluged with messages from
stupid news software incorrectly attributing the bad article to him/her
and his/her software.

>Option 2 might mean that people at offending sites get lots of automatic
>mail. In which case, good!  It'll encourage them to fix their software, and
>the news will still be being delivered.

Bogus, dude.

>With the situation as it is at the moment, there are STILL sites who don't
>know that all their articles are being dropped, so non-conforming articles
>will continue indefinitely.

>> Geoff and Henry have done the Right Thing.

>Rubbish. Throwing away data containing correctable errors, without issuing
>any warning message, is NEVER the right thing.

There are warning messages.  Be a good admin---correctly configure your
machine's news and mail software (i.e., have news send mail about problems
to usenet and alias usenet to the news admin id, but don't depend on news
to tell you when it is having trouble)---and watch your system.

>>            Don't shoot the messenger.

>There was no messenger. C News didn't tell me, remember?

>>                                       Fix your software.

>I have, and now I want to get C News fixed.

Dump your self-righteous attack against C-news.  News isn't mission-critical;
news isn't life-sustaining; delivery of articles isn't guaranteed.  The RFC's
exist, and if your software doesn't implement them correctly, that's tough.

Check your software to make sure it generates RFC-compliant articles.  That's
the only way you can be guaranteed that you have a good chance of getting
your article distributed throughout the net.  You can't blame anyone or
any software for dumping your article and not telling you about it,
especially if your software is faulty.

>mathew
-- 
Guy Helmer, Dakota State University Computing Services
helmer@sdnet.bitnet, dsuvax!ghelmer@wunoc.wustl.edu, ghelmer@dsuvax.dsu.edu
"Everybody need a soft filter / Everybody need reverse polarity" - Rush