Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP
Path: utzoo!dciem!msb
From: msb@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: cross-posting restrictions
Message-ID: <1921@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 20-Aug-86 11:47:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.1921
Posted: Wed Aug 20 11:47:41 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Aug-86 15:29:28 EDT
References: <1986Aug15.033141.4997@utcs.uucp> <1919@dciem.UUCP>
Reply-To: msb@dciem.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Organization: NTT Systems Inc., c/o DCIEM, Toronto
Lines: 32
Summary: 

> Geoff Collyer (geoff@utcs.UUCP) wrote in ont.general:
> > ... in order to prevent
> > cross-postings such as (in the brave new world) "comp.unix.wizards,
> > rec.auto" ... B 2.11 and C news insist that all newsgroups in the
> > Newsgroups: line must be in the same "newsgroup class" ... cross-postings
> > such as ont.general,tor.general will be quietly dropped ...

And I, and now others, have complained about this as a serious misfeature.

I now add a couple of points that I didn't think of in the original article.
The first is to say "thank you" for Geoff for bringing this restriction to
public attention.  I can't say whether it was an oversight or was
intended to be brought out as a fait accompli like the net reorganization
(which I am all in favor of and which clearly had to be done that way), 
but the effect in this case is that of a BUG.

There is no way that news software should be QUIETLY deleting hitherto
valid articles!  Let alone beginning to do so without warning.  This ranks
with Jamie's Junker as one of the most misguided attempts to do good that
the net has been faced with.  And I would be proposing, as was the consensus
on the Junker, that any site running the change should be cut off by its
neighbors -- if not for the fact that in this case we would apparently
be losing part or all of the backbone by doing so.

Mark Brader
	Without the threat of frequent new releases of the system to
	enforce conformity, we have been free to modify and adapt the
	system to suit our own purposes.  ...  On more than one occasion,
	we have found it has been quicker to correct a newly discovered
	program error than to document its existence.  We feel we are in
	a relatively advantageous position compared with users of other
	brands of software.				-- John Lions