Xref: utzoo soc.culture.jewish:4478 news.admin:1476 news.misc:1138
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ttrdc!levy
From: levy@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,news.admin,news.misc
Subject: Re: Distribution
Message-ID: <2100@ttrdc.UUCP>
Date: 17 Jan 88 08:06:21 GMT
References: <4418@mnetor.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T, Skokie, IL
Lines: 44

In article <4418@mnetor.UUCP>, lazer@mnetor.UUCP (Lazer Danzinger) writes:
#> 	There have been apparently a number of postings in scj, which
#> 	have not managed successfully to make their way up to the
#> 	frosty lands of Canada. 
#> 	I deduce this from the fact that I occasionally see responses
#> 	to these postings, without ever having seen the original article.
#> 	Please, when posting articles to this news group, specify a
#> 	distribution that will facilitate your article's journey outside
#> 	of the usa. (Probably a distribution of "na" [North America], will
#> 	ensure propagation at least to our frozen wastelands--readers in
#> 	other countries may prefer an even broader distribution.)
#> 	Until such time that the "free trade" proposals are ratified, this
#> 	should probably do the trick :-)=.
#> 	Thank you.

My dear Lubavitch friend:

	Rest assured that you are not the only one suffering from netnews
anomalies on soc.culture.jewish.  I am seeing a similar effect here in
sunny, warm Chicago.  Several times, in fact, it has been an article that you
have flamed, or where someone has quoted you, and I never see the original.
This might be due to intermediate sites dropping articles when the news load
gets too great and/or the outgoing connections are temporarily out of com-
mission, and expire (or an administrative uustat -k) comes into play before an
article can ever be sent back out.  As for the netnews software, a followup
here will always go out with the same distribution that it had coming in if
the user does not deliberately change it in the header, and most U.S. sites
seem to have similar software to ours, i.e., the plain-vanilla UNIX netnews.
So, "usa" distribution will remain restricted to "usa" and will not become
expanded to "na" or "world" of its own volition upon a followup.  Also, the
default distribution I get here when I make a fresh post to s.c.j. is "world."
User laziness being what it is, I wouldn't expect many users to restrict this
unless a site administrative fiat has imposed a narrower restriction.

	What this boils down to is that what you (and I) are seeing probably
shouldn't be blamed on "Distribution:" problems until there is more tangible
evidence.  I have taken the liberty of cross-posting this to news.admin and
news.misc in hopes of getting some more knowledgeable opinions than mine as
to why this is happening.
-- 
|------------Dan Levy------------|  Path: ..!{akgua,homxb,ihnp4,ltuxa,mvuxa,
|         an Engihacker @        |  	<most AT&T machines>}!ttrdc!ttrda!levy
| AT&T Computer Systems Division |  Disclaimer?  Huh?  What disclaimer???
|--------Skokie, Illinois--------|