Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!utcsri!uthub!ecf!me!utradio!utmanitou!lsuc!mnetor!seismo!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn From: gwyn@brl-smoke.UUCP Newsgroups: news.software.b Subject: Re: inews stupidity Message-ID: <5920@brl-smoke.ARPA> Date: Sat, 30-May-87 06:38:10 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-smok.5920 Posted: Sat May 30 06:38:10 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 31-May-87 08:36:37 EDT References: <1211@cullvax.UUCP> <1324@mmm.UUCP> <2732@phri.UUCP> <706@hao.UCAR.EDU> Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) ) Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 30 In article <706@hao.UCAR.EDU> woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes: ->In article <2732@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: ->> As I side note, I'm a bit peeved that I had to change all my "> "s ->>to "-> "s to make inews happy. I really think this was a mis-feature. -> And I'm peeved that you made OUR SITE pay to RE-transmit an article that ->all the math people have ALREADY READ. Do you think they are stupid? So, you then send to the math newsgroup despite Roy's explicit request to follow-up to new.software.b. ->Is it *really* necessary to quote 20 lines of old article to make a two-line ->comment on it? I do not. Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. I prefer to include enough to refresh everyone's memory about what I'm responding to, or to save having to essentially restate the question for clarity (as in this case). -> You may be right in saying that having inews enforce a old/new text ratio ->is the wrong way to go about it, but we have to do SOMETHING to stop the ->excessive quoting of old articles. As always, the news software writers ->(read: Rick Adams) are always open to suggestions on how to do it better; ->without these, complaints are nothing more than yet more useless flames. Better to do something wrong than to not do something, huh? The old/new text ratio test is so patently BOGUS (and also incorrectly implemented) that it should never have been installed in the first place. It has emphatically NOT stopped the excessive quoting of old articles. How the hell is dumb software supposed to decide what is or is not excessive? I tell you, it cannot be done. So cut it out. It's just causing aggravation and wasting valuable people time.