Xref: utzoo alt.sources.d:386 news.admin:7979
Newsgroups: alt.sources.d,news.admin
Path: utzoo!sq!lee
From: lee@sq.sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin)
Subject: Re: Stupid reposting service (was Re: SLIP/getty/printers on Terminal Servers)
Message-ID: <1989Dec17.041155.11834@sq.sq.com>
Reply-To: lee@sq.com (Liam R. E. Quin)
Organization: Unixsys (UK) Ltd
References: <10282@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu> <5343@omepd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17 Dec 89 04:11:55 GMT

(sorry if this is lng dead -- we're a few days behind on news...)

The reposting is an excellent idea, and tremendously useful.  Keep it up!

merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) writes:
>rossc@extro (Ross Cartlidge) writes:
>
>His reply (paraphrased):
>
>(1) what about sites that don't get that group?
>(2) what about sites with short expiry times?
>(3) what about auto-archivers of alt.sources?
>(4) it takes work to look up the articles
>
>My reply:
>
>(1) they don't get it for either political or functional reasons,
>the problems of which are not solved by reposting articles from that group.
Or they don't get it because they know that no sources are posted there.

>(2) short expirations are likely to apply to alt.sources too, if so.

No, we have a 1-day or 0-day expiry on many groups at the moment, for example,
but alt.sources lives a little longer.  Generally articles take from 0.5 to
five days to reach here, depending on newsgroup, so the alt.sources articles
have expired *before* the others arrive!  (this is a short-term problem here,
but it is shared by other sites...)

>(3)  the archivers could be made
>smarter to recognize his articles and do the proper extraction.

I assume you mean recognise the sources posted to non-source groups.
Recognise them from where?  This is absurd.  And how are you going to get
articles into the archives all over the world if you don't post them?

>(4) tough.  My newsreader does it with two keystrokes.

perhaps you are not reading news on a 286 Xenix PC?

>If he really wants to make this service available, why doesn't he just
>*archive* the "useful stuff", and provide a *mail-server* so we can
>access his archive if we desire.
>
>Another comment:
>
>Redistribution like this may be in violation of the Berne Convention.
>But, I'm not a lawyer.

I do not believe so.

>Anyway, whadda y'all think?  I want to see these silly repostings of
>very long sources *stopped*.

It would be best of all of the posters of the original articles either
cross-posted to alt.sources (not everyone can do this) or posted only to
a source group, and posted a pointer in the other group.
That way people like me who only read a subset of newsgroups because of
time would still get to see all these useful programs.

I personally welcome the postings.  We have to accept the fact that there
is too much news to read these days.  Sigh.

>-- 
>Stonehenge Consulting Services 

Didn't we obsolete Stonehenge at the last British Firmware Release?  :-) :-)

Lee
-- 
Liam R. Quin, lee@sq.com Until Dec. 20th  (visiting sq, not an employee)
After Dec 20, Unixsys (UK) Ltd, Knutsford, UK -- +44 565 50021
At home: +44 925 831084 (0830 GMT to midnight GMT only please...)
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