Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: LET'S NAME THE GUILTY POSTING SOFTWARE!!!
Message-ID: <1991Jun19.182811.19812@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1991 18:28:11 GMT
References: <285E730F.4EC0@tct.com> <6068@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> <1991Jun19.154645.11885@zoo.toronto.edu> <1991Jun19.172544.32267@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1991Jun19.172544.32267@mp.cs.niu.edu> rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu (Neil Rickert) writes:
>...the actual date checking is done by relaynews at the next news
>site down the line, and this is where the article will be silently dropped
>with no feedback to the Author...

Unfortunately, there is absolutely and positively no way inews can check
this, and it's not just a problem at the next site down the line.  *Any*
site could drop your article as too old.  The definition of "too old"
depends on expiry policy, since it is basically "anything too old to be
in the history file".  Somebody who is keeping very little history may
well drop even relatively recent articles as "too old".  It is impossible
for inews to do a single check that will cover you against any possible
"too old" criterion.

This is why we really hoped that detection of recirculating stale news
could be done via history, rather than by setting a date threshold.
There is just no entirely satisfactory setting for that threshold.
Alas, there is simply too much news to keep history for months, which
turns out to be what's needed.

Checking the date for completely wild values, on the other hand, might
be feasible.  However...

>... This is particularly a problem with mail
>gatewayed into news, where wild dates (from unset PC clocks, for example)
>are common.

As we have commented in the past, just piping mail into inews as a gateway
is a mistake.  Inews was not built for that.  It's becoming clear that we
need to address the mail->news gatewaying issue in some more systematic
way, but it's not easy.
-- 
"We're thinking about upgrading from    | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 3.5."              |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry