Xref: utzoo news.admin:14551 news.software.b:7854 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!samsung!news.cs.indiana.edu!widener!hela!wotan.iti.org!scs From: scs@iti.org (Steve Simmons) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b Subject: Re: Really funny jokes being missed Message-ID: Date: 21 May 91 17:20:55 GMT References: <282FD655.3D2A@tct.com> <5ukZ24w164w@mantis.co.uk> <1991May18.192836.137@micrognosis.co.uk> <1991May19.102741.24411@wimsey.bc.ca> <1991May21.155936.9037@zoo.toronto.edu> Sender: usenet@iti.org (Hela News Manager) Organization: Industrial Technology Institute Lines: 32 Nntp-Posting-Host: wotan.iti.org henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >In article <1991May19.102741.24411@wimsey.bc.ca> jhenders@wimsey.bc.ca (John Henders) writes: >>... If the first C-news site that rejected >>the article dropped it on the floor, this problem wouldn't exist. I think an >>attempt to notify the sender is a good idea... >There may not be one "first C News site" to see the article; there may be >dozens or even hundreds of them, if the article first passed through a >B News site with a large news fanout. Given the multiple connectivity within the network, it is almost guaranteed that *every* c-news site will be offered the defective article, probably once for each non-c-news site which the c-news sites connect to. [[Nota bene -- I'm assuming that rejected articles are not recorded in history, on the off chance that a correct version will come thru from another branch. That'd be the `friendly' thing to do.]] Taking us as an example, that'd be 4 or 5 times. If we assume 40,000 sites (just a guess) with a 25% c-news penetration, thats 10,000 notifications. Goodbye /usr/spool/mail on both the offending system and all its neighbors. Imagine this circumstance. Site foo.bar.baz crunches an article you posted. They corrupt the headers, including the message id. Now 10,000 c-news sites send you mail about it *and you're not the one with the defective software*. The proper response (the *only* proper response) is to notify the sites feeding you bad news that they're doing it. Nothing else. -- "SPAM is a registered trademark of a pork product packed only by Geo. A Hormel & Co. Corp." -- Sun Technical Bulletin, March 1991, pg ii