gam@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Gordon Moffett) (09/17/88)
I'm looking for a patch to 2.11 news that does the following:
If an article is cross-posted, generate a "Followup-To:" line
which includes only ONE newsgroup, which is the first in the
list from the "Newsgroups:" line. (An existing non-null
"Followup-To:" line would not be overridden.)
Has this been done? I think this would be a popular patch.
--
Gordon A. Moffett gam@uts.amdahl.com
+1 408 746-8287 {ames,sun,uunet,decwrl}!amdahl!gameric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) (09/19/88)
In article <b5HEn3dpwG1010UMCaU@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> Gordon Moffett writes: > If an article is cross-posted, generate a "Followup-To:" line > which includes only ONE newsgroup, which is the first in the > list from the "Newsgroups:" line. (An existing non-null > "Followup-To:" line would not be overridden.) In 3.0, the Newsgroups line on a followup is truncated to the first group unless the '-C' option has been given to postnews. This gives a similar effect without raising the retransmission overhead on the article. -- Eric S. Raymond (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews) UUCP: ...!{uunet,att,rutgers}!snark!eric = eric@snark.UUCP Post: 22 S. Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718
weemba@garnet.berkeley.edu (Obnoxious Math Grad Student) (09/20/88)
In article <dySyD#22hTF7=eric@snark.UUCP>, eric@snark (Eric S. Raymond) writes: >In 3.0, the Newsgroups line on a followup is truncated to the first group >unless the '-C' option has been given to postnews. Gnews does this too. No flag is available to change this. In 2.0, I've added a C-c C-n to Reply mode that gives quick insertion of newsgroup names using standard Emacs name completion. ucbvax!garnet!weemba Matthew P Wiener/Brahms Gang/Berkeley CA 94720
msb@sq.uucp (Mark Brader) (09/23/88)
> >In 3.0, the Newsgroups line on a followup is truncated to the first group > >unless the '-C' option has been given to postnews. > > Gnews does this too. No flag is available to change this. ... This is absolutely the wrong thing to do. The Newsgroups line specifies a *set* of newsgroups, all equivalent; there has never been any understanding that one was more important than the rest. The result of this behavior is that people who read a message first in a group which is not the one mentioned first, and post a followup, will not find the article in the place they thought they were following up to, and will probably post it again! The *right* thing to do is for the posting software to *warn* people when they're posting [1] a followup to a cross-posted article, or [2] a followup to any article with a followup-to line, and give them an extra chance to change the Newsgroups line. This should happen after they have edited the article body. The posting program should also *demand* a Followup-To line on all cross-posted articles, whether originating or followups. This again should happen *after* the article body is prepared. And any time the user specifies a Followup-To line different from the Newsgroups line, it should then ask: Would you like to re-edit the message, to include a warning telling what your Followup-To line says? If you're going to apply a fix, apply the right fix! And while you're at it, I further suggest that after people have edited the message, they should be reminded of the Subject line and given a chance to change that, and then be prompted for a Summary line. Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com "Everything that can be invented has been invented." -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899
eric@snark.UUCP (Eric S. Raymond) (09/28/88)
Thank you, Mr. Brader, for a well and forcefully-stated reality check. In article <1988Sep23.122756.22442@sq.uucp>, msb@sq.com (Mark Brader) writes: > This is absolutely the wrong thing to do. The Newsgroups line specifies > a *set* of newsgroups, all equivalent; there has never been any understanding > that one was more important than the rest. True. I implemented the -C flag in response to suggestions from a couple of my beta sites. You've shown that they didn't think the problem through, nor did I. > The *right* thing to do is for the posting software to *warn* people when > they're posting [a followup to a crosspost or anything with a Followup-To] > and give them an extra chance to change the Newsgroups line. > This should happen after they have edited the article body. Done. Actually what I have postnews do is offer to bounce the user back into the editor if the Followup-To differs from Newsgroups. > The posting program should also *demand* a Followup-To line on all > cross-posted articles, whether originating or followups. Done. > If you're going to apply a fix, apply the right fix! Quite so. And, failing that, one should at least have one's brain in gear enough to recognize the right fix when suggested, and *then* apply it... the -C option is now dead. > And while you're at it, I further suggest that after people have edited > the message, they should be reminded of the Subject line and given a > chance to change that, and then be prompted for a Summary line. Both excellent suggestions. Done and done. My beta sites will receive these changes in Patch #6. -- Eric S. Raymond (the mad mastermind of TMN-Netnews) UUCP: ...!{uunet,att,rutgers}!snark!eric = eric@snark.UUCP Post: 22 S. Warren Avenue, Malvern, PA 19355 Phone: (215)-296-5718