Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!unisoft!gethen!farren
From: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: MODERATED GROUP (soon) ...
Message-ID: <482@gethen.UUCP>
Date: 27 Dec 87 10:38:06 GMT
References: <375@spl1.UUCP> <5290@iuvax.UUCP> <6902@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Reply-To: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Organization: Sci-Fido - Unix in Oakland
Lines: 37

In article <6902@brl-smoke.ARPA> w8sdz@brl.arpa (Keith B. Petersen (WSMR|towson) <w8sdz>) writes:
>I hope that any binary files posted will be ARCs.  There is no error
>checking in uuencoded OR files compacted with the Unix "compress"
>program.  ARCed files provide a built-in CRC which is checked when
>extracting the file members.

If AND ONLY IF the ARCs contain no text files whatsoever.  To restate
what I've said about eight times so far:  when you compress and uuencode
text files, and then send them over a typical Usenet link (which tries
to compress them once again), you force every site on the net to pay
for the transmission of a much larger file than they would have had
to if you had just sent straight text.  These costs may not come out
of your own personal pocket, but somebody's gotta pay, and there are
too many sites that refuse to carry binary groups already - we don't
need to cause more sites to refuse because it just plain costs too 
much.

I've posted facts and figures based on test runs before; I don't 
particularly want to do it again.  Take my word for it, posting
ARCed text files loses badly - very, very badly - and should NEVER
be done.  Post ARCed binaries if you must, but strip out the text
files first, and send them separately, please?

-- 
Michael J. Farren             | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just 
{ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}!     | dogmatize it!  Reflect on it and re-evaluate
        unisoft!gethen!farren | it.  You may want to change your mind someday."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.arpa |     Tom Reingold, from alt.flame