Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!mauxci!problem!nyama!jad From: jad@nyama.guild.org Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: automatically mailing warnings about dropped news to originators Message-ID: <1991May31.054926.3564@nyama.guild.org> Date: 31 May 91 05:49:26 GMT References: <1991May29.180201.5365@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Sender: jad@nyama.guild.org (Jose A. Dias) Reply-To: jad@nyama.guild.org (Jose A. Dias) Organization: Nyama Nyama Lines: 34 In <1991May29.180201.5365@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG>, xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: (Interesting idea about using probability to decide when to mail a warning about bad headers and when not to.) >The case of a leaf site feeding directly into a site >potentially dropping articles should probably have a >_much_ higher (or unity) chance of a warning being >mailed back, but it would be little extra software >effort to make the randomizing fraction separate and >tunable for each feed a site maintains, so that >generic incoming netwide newsfeeds get low >probability of warning per article (lots of other >sites get a chance to mail a warning, too) while >client sites with no other chance of warning get a >high probability of warning, since only the feed >site will ever see the offending article. Interesting idea here: tie the probability generator with the number of sites in the Path: line. The more sites the message passed through the less likely that the mail should be sent. After 100 sites the chances of getting any mail would be near nill! Mind you, I'm not sure that *every* C-news site would want to have this turned on. Mailing back warnings is a great idea in principle, but the reality is that a lot of people pay *real $* for mail, and sending in lots of warnings would not be a good thing. Solution: make it a feature like the Lines: line... Hmm... Is it just me or is this starting to sound possible? >Kent, the man from xanth. > -- Jose Dias jad@nyama.guild.org Who me? I didn't say anything!