Path: utzoo!utstat!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!maytag!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Dynamic "smart" expiration?
Message-ID: <69654@looking.on.ca>
Date: 31 Dec 89 05:27:29 GMT
References: <1989Dec27.033817.9953@smsc.sony.com> <1989Dec28.063932.13720@robohack.UUCP> <68634@looking.on.ca> <1989Dec29.213539.2801@utzoo.uucp> <6118@yunexus.UUCP> <69448@looking.on.ca> <1120@utoday.UUCP> <`QF52&@rpi.edu>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 27
Class: discussion

Yes, if you kill (or don't feed) groups that nobody reads, then you lose
the ability to resubscribe and have articles present.

But so what?  If saving disk space is important, then this is a small price
to pay.  It's a cute feature, but not worth megs of disk.

And if you have gigs to spare, you don't have to play around with fancy
expire tricks.

I liked Eric Raymond's idea the best.  Scan all the .newsrc files.  'and'
together the 'read' bits.  Expire those articles marked read.

Thus once everybody's read it, it's history.  Means you can't go back, but
it also means you can save a *lot* of disk space.

A slightly more relaxed scheme would and all the 'read' bits and queue the
result for deletion in N days.  Article stay N days after everybody has
read them.  N could vary by group.  In addition, roots of big trees might
stick around.

Alternately, compress and archive all articles that have been read by
everybody.  Cut news disk space more than in half.

Hard to do this with NNTP, though.  But on a machine where disk space is
important, like a PC, it's the way to go.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473