Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rutgers!ames!ptsfa!hippo!eric
From: eric@hippo.UUCP (Eric Bergan)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Expiration dates on OtherRealms
Message-ID: <144@hippo.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-Jul-87 11:28:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: hippo.144
Posted: Thu Jul 30 11:28:07 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Aug-87 09:49:56 EDT
References: <2525@hoptoad.uucp> <4160@felix.UUCP>
Organization: HEALTHCARE 2000
Lines: 39

In article <4160@felix.UUCP>, rlong@felix.UUCP (Roger L. Long) writes:
> In article <2525@hoptoad.uucp> gnu@hoptoad.uucp (John Gilmore) writes:
> >While burning disk space all over the world is a "solution" to Chuq's
> >problems, it bothers me.
> > ...
> >Chuq seems to see his group as more important than the
> >rules for Expires: lines.  Do the rest of the news admins agree?
> 
> I don't see that Chuq is breaking any rules with his use of Expires header
> lines.  His reasons are perfectly valid, and as he's pointed out, anyone
> who feels the need to override the expiration date at a given site is
> welcome to do so.

	It seems to me that Chuq is making a reasonable use of the Expires
header. What John seems to argue is that we should not support the
"Expires" header at all, or only for those articles which are explicitly
"approved" to have a long expire date. But I don't know of any group
of people that determines that an abnormally long "Expire" line is
approved. Nor do I know any way of ensuring that all sites obey "the rules".

	As another poster pointed out, we are arguing about 112,000 bytes
here. On our system, this translates into a one time cost of $2.22 -
pretty cheap for a magazine subscription. You can argue that you are
being forced to pay this, regardless of whether you want the subscription
or not, and that the only way for you not to spend the money is by taking
additional measures to "hand-expire" the articles. But I think this is
true of a lot of the news. (Does everyone rely on the default 14 day
expiration for all groups? We certainly haven't at all the sites that
I have been associated with.)

	(It is true that I read and enjoy otherrealms. If this means
that you now disregard all of my arguments as being biased - so be it.
But I'm pretty sure that I would argue the same way, even if I hated
otherrealms.)

-- 

					eric
					...!ptsfa!hippo!eric