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From: shore@ncifcrf.gov (Melinda Shore)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.software.b,news.misc
Subject: Re: Default Distribution Proposal
Message-ID: <539@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov>
Date: 29 Jul 88 19:38:17 GMT
References: <1988Jul26.232430.1599@utzoo.uucp> <6333@uwmcsd1.UUCP>
Reply-To: shore@ncifcrf.gov (Melinda Shore)
Organization: NCI Supercomputer Center, Frederick, MD
Lines: 27

In article <6333@uwmcsd1.UUCP> dave@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (David A Rasmussen) writes:
>From article <1988Jul26.232430.1599@utzoo.uucp>, by henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer):
>> Trouble is, most everybody will configure it the other way then.  It's
>> pointless to propose things that would help keep trash under control at
>> the cost of making life harder for people who know what they're doing;
>> such an idea either won't be implemented or will be bypassed automatically.
>Anyhow, it would be nice if the folks here when posting news could just
>press return and post locally, unless they know enough to hit a few
>more keystrokes.

I dunno.  When there was debate about whether or not postings should
bounce if more than 50% of the lines were included material, people
objected claiming that users would use several obvious workarounds to
avoid the restriction.  My feeling was that the inconvenience of typing
a few extra keystrokes would discourage users from using the
workarounds.  I was wrong.  Not only have rn users taken to using the
-F switch to set the line prefix for quotes, they've gotten into the
habit of adding fodder lines to the body of the text *whether they need
to or not*.

Let us not underestimate our users or ourselves.  While I like the idea
of a default distribution in principle, experience shows that adding
features to encourage righteous behavior gives us all one more thing to
tweak, break, and ignore.
-- 
Melinda Shore                                    shore@ncifcrf.gov
NCI Supercomputer Facility              ..!uunet!ncifcrf.gov!shore