Xref: utzoo news.admin:15304 news.software.b:8301 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!dog.ee.lbl.gov!ucsd!celit!billd From: billd@fps.com (Bill Davidson) Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b Subject: Re: Really funny jokes being missed Message-ID: <18522@celit.fps.com> Date: 18 Jun 91 03:07:33 GMT References: <1991Jun1.233346.2016@rotag.mi.org> Followup-To: news.admin Organization: FPS Computing Inc., San Diego CA Lines: 74 I keep chanting to myself: "I will stay out of this stupid flame war. I will ignore Mathew's ranting" "I will stay out of this stupid flame war. I will ignore Mathew's ranting" "I will stay out of this stupid flame war. I will ignore Mathew's ranting" "I will stay out of this stupid flame war. I will ignore Mathew's ranting" "I will stay out of this stupid flame war. I will ignore Mathew's ranting" "I will stay out of this stupid flame war. I will ignore Mathew's ranting" Arrrrrrrgghhh! I can't help help myself. Why do I care? I don't know. In article mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) writes: >kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes: >> Mathew: it is not the job of C News to de-louse every bad header it sees, nor >> to yak-yak to humans about the sad state of posting software. It's purpose is >> to transfer news to and from disks and networks as smoothly and efficiently a >> possible. > >Right. And for six months, it was failing to transfer news articles I posted. >Smoothly and efficiently don't even enter into it, it was simply failing in >its purpose. SIX MONTHS!?!?! The last part of the patch that started dropping articles was issued on March 25 (less than 3 months ago). This flame war has been going for a couple of months now. Assuming that your feed sites patched ASAP, I think you figured it out in less than a month. Please get a sense of proportion. >> C NEWS IS A NEWS *TRANSPORT*, NOT A NEWS *SCHOOLMARM*!! > >Right. So why does it complain about errors that are unimportant? So long as >it has enough information to deliver the article, why the hell does it >schoolmarm us with nit-picking about the header syntax? How many times do we have to tell you? It's main complaint is about important errors which DO AFFECT DELIVERY wether you understand it or not. Yes "Date:" does affect delivery. In fact, transport problems related to "Date:" and people bitching about them were one of the main reasons for the new behaviour. You obviously haven't been listening. Dropping articles with bad headers has solves some major transport problems. >> Given the obvious advantages and increasing popularity of C News over other >> news transports, and the fact that it follows the RFC in this regard, I >> consider it perfectly reasonable to expect sites with broken posting software >> to adapt to C News, rather than the other way around. > >So do I. However, I happen to take the rather sensible view that sites with >broken software are unlikely to spontaneously mutate into C News compliant >sites. Some human intervention at the appropriate site will be required, >and hence someone at that site needs to be reliably informed about errors >detected by C News. Nope. If your articles get dropped that's your problem and nobody else's. News is a dispersion transport with NO GUARANTEES. When I first set up news, I posted articles to misc.test to make sure that articles were getting out to major sites. I still do it on occasion, especially when I update my news software or I know a popular patch has gone out to a lot of major sites. I am responsible for my own software and nobody else. >Hence C News has to have an error-reporting mechanism. To the local sysadmin yes. To remote admins or users no. In fact, I consider it highly undesirable. News is not mail. >I think you ought to re-think whose side you're arguing for. I've thought about it a lot. I think that the decisions made for Cnews were the right ones. --Bill Davidson