Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!purdue!gatech!gtss!chas
From: chas@gtss.UUCP (Charles Cleveland)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: What's with comp.sys.amiga.tech?
Message-ID: <246@gtss.UUCP>
Date: 27 Apr 88 02:35:18 GMT
References: <571@hub.ucsb.edu>
Reply-To: chas@gtss.UUCP (Charles Cleveland)
Organization: Georgia Tech School of Physics
Lines: 54
Summary: it's alive and well

In article <571@hub.ucsb.edu> hbo@sbphy.ucsb.edu (Howard Owen) writes:
)
)   I recently had the following exchange of messages with the administrator
)of my newsfeed. I wonder if anyone else is having difficulty receiving 
)comp.sys.amiga.tech? His reply (+) follows my question (++).
)
)++     The comp.sys.amiga  group  on  usenet recently  spawned  a  .tech
)++     child.   I was  happily reading  this new  group,  congratulating
)
)+On 20 April an  rmgroup control message was  sent out across  the
)+usenet  which  automatically  removed  the  "comp.sys.amiga.tech"
)+group from  all sites.    These are  common messages  which  come

Well, I see messages like this cross my 'desk' with considerable frequency
in my capacity as sysadmin.  Over the course of time I have learned that
   1) There is a good reason why the net's news software provides for
      a human to intercede between all posted rmgroup messages and their
      execution, if the person installing news has the wits to implement
      that provision.
   2) A sysadmin should never remove a group upon first receiving a rmgroup
      message until at least one week has past without a countermanding
      message from above saying something like 'oops...a checkgroups message
      we got didn't inadvertently didn't include the xx.yy groups which we
      carry so they were all marked as invalid'.  After all the entire
      directory gets purged.
   3) It generally does very little harm to carry groups even if they are
      unofficial, since the unofficial groups offer little in the way of
      traffic and expense.  (I generally ignore rmgroup messages simply
      predicated upon the groups' 'unauthorized' status.  If nobody carries
      it I don't get it and it doesn't cost me anything; if I get a lot
      of traffic on it, I should carry it whether it is 'official' or not.)
      Furthermore, I live on the very flank of the backbone and have
      observed before that even the backbone, or at least part of it,
      carries at least some groups that are officially 'unauthorized'.
      I received comp.sys.amiga.tech continuously from the first 'bogus'
      posting creating it in spite of the fact that nothing reaches me
      without traversing at least part of the backbone.  Now that it is
      official I have less concern about missing something, nonetheless.
   4) Being a sysadmin requires more than mechanically responding to every
      rmgroup message that comes down the pike.  Some thought may be
      required.  And more may be required as an answer to a query such as
      yours ('where did my official newsgroup go?') than the bland response
      you got.  Make no mistake.  Each sysadmin can decide which newsgroups
      he carries and he is not at mercy of official rmgroup postings from the
      so-called backbone unless his neighbors all decide to drop the group
      as a consequence ... in which case any action of his is superfluous
      anyway.

And for all the good it will do you, you can quote me.
-- 
-Life would be so much easier if we could just look at the source code.-

Charles Cleveland    Georgia Tech School of Physics    Atlanta, GA 30332
UUCP: ...!gatech!gtss!chas         INTERNET:  chas@ss.physics.gatech.edu