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Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP
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From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: net.news.adm,net.news.b,net.news.sa
Subject: Re: I hate very long articles.
Message-ID: <3206@nsc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Sep-85 02:15:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: nsc.3206
Posted: Wed Sep  4 02:15:44 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 08:29:53 EDT
References: <425@dcl-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach)
Followup-To: net.news.adm
Organization: Uncle Chuqui's Lemming Farm
Lines: 50
Xref: watmath net.news.adm:366 net.news.b:1188 net.news.sa:168
Summary: 

[note: future followups will show up only in net.news.adm...]

In article <425@dcl-cs.UUCP> stephen@dcl-cs.UUCP (Stephen J. Muir) writes:
>I think there should be some way to limit the size of news articles, especially
>those in net.sources*.  These newsgroups have had *very* large articles even
>though they come in several parts.  I would rather see many small parts to a
>set of articles than a few very big parts.

I looked at this a couple of months ago. Technically, it isn't possible
unless the restrictions are installed at the creation of the network (many
of the new network systems I've seen published have this restriction) but
there is no way to install it after the fact unless you have control over
the entire network, which we don't. If you only install it in some
locations, you end up creating a LOT of pain and anguish, and likely a
number of new and interesting black holes (where messages go away silently,
never to be seen again) as well. 

Philosophically, I have nothing against long articles that are put together
well. Especially in net.sources, since sources tend to be rather long
(especially if they are non-trivial and/or well documented, both of which
the stuff in net.sources ought to be...). In fact, there has been a
suggestion (semi-seriously) to reject articles that are shorter than a
certain length in an attempt to get rid of some of the garbage that is
there but belongs in other groups. It, unfortunately, seems to have the
same technological problems...

I'd rather see us looking for answers to serious problems: misplaced
articles, articles with excessive quoting, mega-multi silly responses to
the same article, some way to keep topics from resurrecting every few
months (net.unix-wizards is AGAIN discussing kernel based pagers, and
net.tv is probably due for the semi-annual "What city is Hill Street Blues
really" about fiasco...) and ways to deal with the general excessive volume
and reader overload going on with the net. It is easy to fix problems that
don't solve anything, its not so easy to even define the difficult
problems...

Personally, I have more or less decided that its time to quick mucking with
USENET and use the examples of what doesn't work here to build something
that will. In my copious free time... *sigh*

chuq
[editorial reminder: some sites DO have size restrictions on uucp traffic,
 some on mail, some on mail and news. some limit things to 100K, some to
 64K, and I've run into sites that get upset at 50K. If you're putting
 together a large distribution or set of sources to be distributed or 
 mailed somewhere, it is safest to put it in batches of 40K or less]
-- 
Chuq Von Rospach nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA {decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!chuqui

Son, you're mixing ponderables again