Xref: utzoo news.admin:14553 news.software.b:7860 Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: Really funny jokes being missed Message-ID: <1991May21.191538.15325@zoo.toronto.edu> Date: Tue, 21 May 1991 19:15:38 GMT References: <1991May18.211109.20401@zoo.toronto.edu> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology In article mathew@mantis.co.uk (CNEWS MUST DIE!) writes: >> You may call it what you wish. Our experience is that all alternatives are >> worse. > >Why, which have you tried? There has been considerable experience, over the years, with news software that sends mail to an article's originator or to a newsgroup's moderator when something untoward is detected. Such software is universally reviled by people who have actually been on the receiving end. >> The losses, while regrettable, are necessary. >Why is it "necessary" to drop articles with the date written as > Date: Mon 20 May 91 15:46 GMT >instead of > Date: Mon, 20 May 91 15:46 GMT >then? Enquiring minds want to know. Because general repair of botched headers is an impossibly hard problem, and imperfect solutions are often cures worse than the disease. This case would not have been hard to deal with... but there is *always* just one more case that would be easy to deal with, and you have to draw the line somewhere. >> You needn't bother repeating them, and I'm not going to bother >> telling you yet again what's wrong with them.) > ... >I hate to inject a note of personal criticism, given that your fan club is >already sending me hate mail, but isn't that just a little bit smug and >self-satisfied? Try tired, short of time, and sick of telling you again and again why your naive ideas don't work or have unacceptable side effects. See my other recent postings for details. Actually, one of your ideas -- using news rather than mail to report the problems -- is not totally naive. It has its own problems and we haven't yet found a variant that is fully workable. (Trying to get everyone to carry a new newsgroup is infeasible, and "control" is a fake newsgroup with non-intuitive semantics.) If we ever find a way to do this, it will probably be along those lines. But if you have thought of it in five minutes, I can just about guarantee that we thought of it long ago. Please *think* about your ideas, including how they might fail, before posting them. -- And the bean-counter replied, | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology "beans are more important". | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry