Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!oliveb!pyramid!prls!philabs!phri!dasys1!rsweeney
From: rsweeney@dasys1.UUCP (Robert Sweeney)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: How to eliminate the cost of over 1/5 (or more) of net traffic
Message-ID: <4544@dasys1.UUCP>
Date: 20 May 88 04:07:37 GMT
References: <6556@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <7869@mcdchg.UUCP> <9304@g.ms.uky.edu>
Reply-To: rsweeney@dasys1.UUCP (Robert Sweeney)
Distribution: na
Organization: The Big Electric Cat, New York, NY
Lines: 23

In article <9304@g.ms.uky.edu> david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) writes:
>In article <7869@mcdchg.UUCP> heiby@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby) writes:
>>Don has an interesting idea.  
>>....  Unfortunately, it would also mean that we would
>>lose all semblance of discussion order.  If person A posted a 150 line article
>>and person B posted a 10 line rebuttle, the rebuttle would appear on systems
>>before the original article.  
>That already happens quite a bit.  We don't lose here.

It happens quite a bit now, but it would be much worse if the proposed change
is made.  Sorting articles by length rather than simply sending them in more-
or-less chronological order would practically guarantee that articles would
arrive out of sequence.

Netnews conversations are already difficult enough to follow.  I like the idea
of having some way to force news volume down (although currently it's not
a problem at dasys1, since we're practically dedicated to news), but I
don't think sorting by length is an appropriate answer. 

-- 
Robert Sweeney              {sun!hoptoad,cmcl2!phri}!dasys1!rsweeney
Big Electric Cat Public Access Unix (212) 879-9031 - System Operator
You do it because you're drunk, you're numb, and you just don't care.