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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!sun!calma!story
From: story@calma.UUCP (Glen Story)
Newsgroups: net.sources.d
Subject: Re: Why do people submit follow-up articles, which are better sent via mail
Message-ID: <180@calma.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Mar-86 13:20:13 EST
Article-I.D.: calma.180
Posted: Tue Mar 11 13:20:13 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Mar-86 04:09:46 EST
References: <1153@utcs.uucp>
Reply-To: story@calma.UUCP (Glenn Story)
Distribution: net
Organization: GE/Calma Co., R&D Systems Engineering, Milpitas, CA
Lines: 50

In article <1153@utcs.uucp> gordon@utcs.uucp (Steve Gordon - Erindale) writes:
>
>I keep on seeing things like this of late:
>
>"I would like a copy too..."
>
>Why not mail the person who posted the request, and have that person mail you
>a copy if it is not posted. This seems a more reasonable thing to do as my
>"j" and "n" keys are getting worn out....!

I agree with your sentiment.  However, when I first started using the
Net, I had trouble sending mail to people, so I would submit a follow-up
article instead (mea culpa).

Since that time I have figured out how to send mail.  Because I have seen 
other complaints about not being able to send replies via mail when using
"rn", let me share my results here:

If I were to use the "r" or "R" facility of rn, to send a reply to 
the article I am presently following up, the mailer on this system would
undoubtedly choke on the address gordon@utcs.uucp.  I suspect there is 
a way to tell the mail system the route to utcs.uucp, but I don't know
how to do it, and probably don't have the privilege to do it anyway.

What I do instead is this:

1.  I press "r" or "R" to rn to send the reply (as normal).

2.  When asked for an editor I specify emacs.  (I'm sure this technique
can be adapted one way or another to other editors).

3.  Once in emacs, I bring up a second window with the original article.
(The path name, at least on our system is something like 
/usr/spool/news/net/sources.d/1364  where 1364, in this example, is
the article number displayed by rn, as in "Article 1364 (3 more)".)

4.  In the original file is a heading line "path" which specifies how the
article got to me.  For some reason this line is not displayed by rn.  Nor
is it used for the return path for replies.

5.  I use emacs kill and yank commands to move the path information to 
replace the "To:" informtion in the reply I am creating.

Hope this helps.  If anyone has better ways of sending replies with rn,
I'd be happy to hear.


Glenn Story
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