Xref: utzoo news.admin:15004 news.software.b:8155 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!psuecl!jazz!fenner From: fenner@jazz.psu.edu (Bill Fenner) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b Subject: Re: Really funny jokes being missed Message-ID: <1991Jun6.160446.1310@ecl.psu.edu> Date: 6 Jun 91 20:04:42 GMT References: <1991Jun4.193039.18424@alembic.acs.com> Organization: Penn State University Mechanical Engineering Department Lines: 27 Nntp-Posting-Host: jazz.psu.edu In article mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) writes: |csu@alembic.acs.com (Dave Mack) writes: |> Here's a clue for you, mathew: we are not obligated to ensure that |> *any* article gets propagated. | |To turn your argument around: | |If a mail message is not correctly addressed, there are damn good reasons for |*not* forwarding it, as has already been explained in excruciating detail. |Therefore we should silently delete badly-addressed mail messages. Eventually |people sending mail will correct their software and learn to be more careful |so that erroneous messages do not occur. The mail analogy is flawed, though, Mathew. There is only ever one copy of an E-mail message, and it only ever has one destination. Therefore, there's no ambiguity about whether bouncing it will create huge amounts of mail to the sender; you know you have the only copy. (Erik Fair, and mailing lists in general, excluded. :-) In USENET, you have one of many copies of an article, and it doesn't have any specific destionation (hint: "world" is not a specific enough destination.) . There is no easy solution to the news problem. A control message with a modified Message-ID is the best solution I've seen so far. Bill -- Bill Fenner fenner@jazz.psu.edu ..psuvax1!hogbbs!wcfpc!wcf wcf@hogbbs.scol.pa.us (+1 814 238-9633 2400MNP5)