Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!rutgers!seismo!nbires!rcd From: rcd@nbires.UUCP (Dick Dunn) Newsgroups: net.news.adm Subject: Re: Problem with bitmap for vnews Message-ID: <632@opus.nbires.UUCP> Date: Fri, 24-Oct-86 10:25:37 EDT Article-I.D.: opus.632 Posted: Fri Oct 24 10:25:37 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 25-Oct-86 07:14:15 EDT References: <196@sandia.UUCP> <285@rayssd.UUCP> <1768@tektools.UUCP> Organization: NBI,Inc, Boulder CO Lines: 48 Summary: Dodging the problem, and creating another About the problem which shows up as: > > ...vnews: Bitmap not large enough for newsgroup net.micro.mac > The problem is not really in the bit map sizing, but rather in expire. Try > running expire with the -I option (if your version of expire supports this). > This option tells expire to ignore the 'Expires:' line in the header and to > expire news based on the default or the time passed with the '-e' option. I'm sure that there are people who already do this--and frankly, it's irresponsible. The "Expires:" line is put there for a purpose. There ARE those of us who have attempted to use it to create long-expiration articles which provide basic information to new readers of a group or which answer frequently-asked questions. If you arbitrarily blow away these articles, you're just contributing to largely-useless traffic on the net. If the software were more sophisticated, it would use some algorithm for handling sets which are sparse in one region and dense in another. That's a lot to ask someone to write just for a small problem, though. Instead of DISCARDING an article that someone has asked you to KEEP, why don't you MOVE the articles that cause a problem to some higher article number? It shouldn't be hard to do and it doesn't need to be done very often. The active file will tell you which newsgroup(s) are likely to become problems in the near future; you should be able to write a program to check the active file in about five minutes. > > We have found articles in net.jokes and others that some ignorant sole's > ego has decided that their joke should stick around till the turn of the > century... (Ignorant sole, my foot! (fishing for humor, there):-) Is there any facility in the net software that CAN'T be abused?! How does the one offense (needlessly long expiration) justify the other (violating the purpose of "Expires:"). > ...One of the largest offenders is mod.conferences. > Apparently it is necessary to let people know about upcomming conferences > many months in advance... How does a particular need become an offense? Seems to me that mod.confer- ences is just one of the places where longer expirations are justified. HEY--wait a minute--we must be missing LARGE amounts of news! Our mod.conferences' highest article number is currently 47. Does ANYbody have so many articles in that group that it's even close to becoming a problem??? -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra,seismo}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools.