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From: ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Ken Arromdee)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: The 50% rule is in--now what?
Message-ID: <3943@jhunix.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 15-Nov-86 01:02:38 EST
Article-I.D.: jhunix.3943
Posted: Sat Nov 15 01:02:38 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 17-Nov-86 21:08:02 EST
References: <212@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> <751@chinet.UUCP> <4283@ut-ngp.UUCP>
Reply-To: ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Ken Arromdee)
Organization: TARDIS Repairs, Inc.
Lines: 28

>I (and I suspect many others) have often been guilty of "padding" text, just
>to get my post up. Not necessarily padding with empty lines or garbage, but
>just blabbering endlessly to fill up space. Here are a few ideas that might
>be worth thinking about:
>1. Maybe the 50% could go into effect ONLY if the included text exceeded 24
>   lines (or one screenful).
>2. How about a FLAT LIMIT on how much can be included in ANY case? You can
>   easily transfer the gist of a post in less than a screenful.
>3. How about a limit on the number of "levels" of included text? I normally
>   pounce on the "n" key when I see a message starting off with 5 >'s....

So all that has to be done is for the posters to use their text editor to
substitute another character for the > character.  (and if inews is modified
to check for any repeating character, it's not too hard to write a filter
that would replace each > with a random character from the set >,],),}, etc...)

Flat limits: Sure... then you could modify Pnews to post articles in pieces if
they are over 24 lines long....

Number of levels: if someone writes a filter to put in random characters, this
could be defeated simply by an extension of the same program.
--
Never look a gift horse in the mouth, but beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

Kenneth Arromdee
BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS
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