Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!yale!mintaka!ogicse!littlei!omepd!iwarp.intel.com!news
From: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Cnews distributions (was Re: INEWS -C)
Message-ID: <1990Feb2.180135.17320@iwarp.intel.com>
Date: 2 Feb 90 18:01:35 GMT
References: <116@tropez.UUCP> <4097@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> <1990Feb2.021057.23837@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@iwarp.intel.com
Reply-To: merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz)
Organization: Stonehenge; netaccess via Intel, Beaverton, Oregon, USA
Lines: 43
In-Reply-To: coolidge@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge)

In article <1990Feb2.021057.23837@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu>, coolidge@brutus (John Coolidge) writes:
| In C news, you can list distributions separately in the sys file. Most
| sites seem to put /all,!<local things> as the distributions entry,
| mainly because a) it's simpler, and b) it makes the whole sys file a
| _lot_ shorter, and c) it's arguably better behavior. If !local doesn't
| appear in this entry, local postings head outward. We don't use local
| here, so it's not in my outgoing limits --- and so anyone who gives
| me a local posting will find me sending it on again (I was a link in
| the alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork chain...).
| 
| Distribution: is a messy thing, and (unlike newsgroups) there's no
| accurate list of what a valid distribution _is_. Without that, there's
| no real way for a good sysadmin to a) let through all postings that
| should get through and b) stop all that shouldn't. One of the other
| slips, and I tend to err on the side of more postings getting through.

Having recently made the transition from newsreader (from way back
when Tektronix was the 20th machine on Usenet) to news admin, I
brought up Cnews.  I was first puzzled when articles *without* a
distribution weren't going out.  My sys file had
"comp,news,sci,rec,soc,talk,alt,gnu,intel,pnw,or,pdx" (the last four
being regional group names) for a group list, which is also the
default distribution list.  It took some scruffing through the code to
find out that "world" was the default distribution, so I added world.
Then, along came some articles that I replied to that had "usa" or
"na" for distributions, and *those* weren't going out.  So I added
those.  I'm still waiting for the next thing that fails. :-)

But, the way I'm doing it, if a person puts "just_around_here" for a
distribution, it doesn't accidentally leave the machine.  That's what
I haven't yet liked about putting "all,!localstuff" for the
distributions.

How many others have gone with the "all-except" distribution, rather
than "just these" distribution policy?  Remember, I'm still new to
this side of the job, so be gentle.

Just another new news admin,
-- 
/=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III      |
| merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn |
\=Cute Quote: "Welcome to Portland, Oregon, home of the California Raisins!"=/