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From: Karl.Kleinpaste@cbstr1.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Suggestion for automatic Followup-To:
Message-ID: <207@cbstr1.att.com>
Date: Tue, 7-Apr-87 09:08:42 EST
Article-I.D.: cbstr1.207
Posted: Tue Apr  7 09:08:42 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 10-Apr-87 03:01:00 EST
Sender: karl@cbstr1.att.com
Lines: 31
Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.41.1 of Mon Mar 30 1987 on cbstr1 (usg-unix-v)

I offered the following suggestion a couple of months ago, but never
heard word one from anybody about it.  It was at a time of relatively
unstable newsfeeds, so I suspect it did not get far.

I suggest that postings which have more than one newsgroup specified
be required to have a Followup-To: line.  If an article is composed
with multiple newsgroups, the poster will have to add a Followup-To:
of his own to specify the ONE group to which followups will go.  If
the poster does not edit in such a line, inews will automatically
insert such a line, using the first newsgroup requested as the
intended followup group.

I think this would be extremely useful for the purpose of allowing a
discussion to start in some potentially wide-ranging set of newsgroups
(which are admittedly necessary at times) while pushing all followups
to the original posting into a single newsgroup immediately
thereafter.  This should reduce the number of complaints of the form,
"Would you PLEASE move this discussion back to soc.ThisNThat where it
started, and leave those of us in comp.FooBarBletch alone?"

Readers who find that an article is cross-posted and who do not
subscribe to the intended followup group will know that they will have
to subscribe to the followup group or miss out on the discussion.

As a side effect, this may also help to reduce traffic slightly, due
to the reduced number of followups generated from persons only
peripherally involved in a discussion, outside the primary newsgroup.

Opinion, countersuggestion, improvement?

Karl