Xref: utzoo news.admin:15044 news.software.b:8179 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!caen!hellgate.utah.edu!dog.ee.lbl.gov!nosc!crash!optigfx!mrm From: mrm@optigfx.optigfx.com (Mike Murphy) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b Subject: Re: Really funny jokes being missed Message-ID: <366@optigfx.optigfx.com> Date: 7 Jun 91 22:50:10 GMT References: <1991Jun6.120359.5946@mp.cs.niu.edu> Followup-To: news.admin Organization: Optigraphics Corporation, San Diego Lines: 80 In article mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) writes: >rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes: >> In article mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a * >> >If a mail message is not correctly addressed, there are damn good reasons fo >> >*not* forwarding it, as has already been explained in excruciating detail. >> >Therefore we should silently delete badly-addressed mail messages. Eventuall >> >people sending mail will correct their software and learn to be more careful >> >so that erroneous messages do not occur. >> >> Mail is very different from news. > >So tell me: why is it OK to silently throw away news a person has written, >but not OK to silently throw away mail a person has written? Because news is by convention not critical. Because news is flood saturation transfer. It is, for example, perfectly OK for a site to have a manager that says, "Argggh, this ferbensplotz 7 has trashed its inode table again, clean out the news spool area, and try again." And then remove all the articles, rebuild history, active, and start over. Without telling anyone. Without notifying the authors that their articles have been trashed. Without passing the articles on to the sites that the ferbensplotz 7 feeds so dutifully. It's OK to do that. It's to be expected. It's why you have multiple feeds. It's why you feed multiple sites. Again, as an example, here at work, where I toil endlessly, we feed locally generated articles to uunet. Direct. So they'll get wide propagation. Quickly. Or sort of quickly. Now you know it is OK for a site to drop your article silently. It really is. OK for It is also OK for a site to not carry a particular distribution or newsgroup. This means that the net may be unconnected with respect to an article that you may post. Portions of the net may not get your article. This is illustrated by a simple drawing yoursite-{cloud_1 of hosts that is connected with respect to a group X} | onehost not connected with respect to X, i.e., they drop group X and don't propagate it. | {cloud_2 of hosts that is connected with respect to a group X} Cloud_2 doesn't get your postings to group X. No one needs to or is required to or is bound to tell you about it. You can get around the problem by cross posting to a group that is carried nearly everywhere, e.g., news.admin. This is considered bad form :-) You would be flamed for so doing. This is not the case for mail. I disagree with Neil. A bounce is a politeness. Sometimes the bounces don't make it. If I get a bounce notification or a bounce of a bounce back, I'll try really hard to make sure that the sender gets a report that mail isn't making it through. So they can try another route. Try hard as in human intervention, followed by telephone call if required. The mail is only going the one path, I'm to assume. I don't need to convince Neil that my view is right and his is wrong. BTW, mine isn't right and his wrong. Mine may be more polite. He has less time per mail message bounced at his site. If he had more time, who knows, he still might be as crusty as he is, maybe not :-) If the bounce is a bounce to nobody@nobody.com because somebody didn't bother to edit some canned header, I don't try very hard to let 'em know about a bounce. Again, News is different. > >> I strongly support Henry and Geoff in maintaining high standards for news. > >So do I. All that I ask is that they report errors. > They do. It (C News) does. Possibly to someone who could care less, a site administrator at a site far from you :-( I don't let you know when a batch of incoming news is dropped for lack of spool space that may contain an article that was written by you. Do you want me to start doing so? :-) I'd extend the offer to everyone on the net, but I've limited resources, as do the systems that pass mail for us, sorry... > >mathew > > -- Mike Murphy mrm@Optigfx.COM ucsd!optigfx!mrm +1 619 292 6060 x 265 Optigraphics Corporation 9339 Carroll Park Drive San Diego, CA 92121 The opinion(s) expressed above are mine and not those of my employer.