Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cmcl2!brl-adm!umd5!ames!pasteur!agate!garnet!weemba
From: weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Emacs Weenie)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Take a sniff of (keyword) Gnews
Keywords: keywords
Message-ID: <8061@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 27 Mar 88 03:47:56 GMT
References: <1509@looking.UUCP> <357@mancol.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@agate.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (a small gnews-ance)
Organization: Brahms Gang Posting Central
Lines: 38
In-reply-to: jh@mancol.UUCP (John Hanley)

I'd like to clarify a few things, and then shut up.

In article <357@mancol.UUCP>, jh@mancol (John Hanley) writes:
>Why must any keyword-based system be doomed to inflexibility?
>To be effective, a system with lots of rules like Gnews would need to be able
>to automatically pull new rules off the net.  Clearly, we can't make this too
>easy, or the first time Fred Twit pissed off Joe Blow, Joe would instruct
>Gnews's all over the world to abuse people posting articles on Mr. Twit. [...]

Gnews is just one news-reader/poster/mailer of many.  Its primary advan-
tage over others is that it is written in Emacs Lisp, and so it can be
programmed at a very high level.  Systems like the ones being thrown
around for screening articles are no more inherent to Gnews than any
other poster; and implementing them is only effective if they become
widespread.

I mentioned Gnews for the advertizing, and because I think any new user
restricting software, like the 50% rule, should be tested more widely
before being implemented, to see just how users will respond.

I agree with Chuq & Greg that a genuine keyword system for USENET is
hopelessly impossible.  And I agree with Greg that any system that gets
implemented cannot be one that must adapt to stay alive and be useful;
in particular, I reject John's suggestions above as impossible.

The proposal that I did make was merely a very rough sketch--tests, when
possible, for generally accepted ungood postings.  Programming *this*
seems neither too easy nor outrageously hard.

I'll also point out that Gnews does have two restrictions built in to
its posting mode:
 (*) The *gnews*reply* buffer is in auto-fill-mode when the width of its
     window exceeds 80 columns.
 (*) Double signature appending is blocked, using some very trivial heur-
     istics.
I have yet to hear a single complaint about either of these.

ucbvax!garnet!weemba	Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720