Karl.Kleinpaste@cbstr1.UUCP (04/07/87)
I offered the following suggestion a couple of months ago, but never heard word one from anybody about it. It was at a time of relatively unstable newsfeeds, so I suspect it did not get far. I suggest that postings which have more than one newsgroup specified be required to have a Followup-To: line. If an article is composed with multiple newsgroups, the poster will have to add a Followup-To: of his own to specify the ONE group to which followups will go. If the poster does not edit in such a line, inews will automatically insert such a line, using the first newsgroup requested as the intended followup group. I think this would be extremely useful for the purpose of allowing a discussion to start in some potentially wide-ranging set of newsgroups (which are admittedly necessary at times) while pushing all followups to the original posting into a single newsgroup immediately thereafter. This should reduce the number of complaints of the form, "Would you PLEASE move this discussion back to soc.ThisNThat where it started, and leave those of us in comp.FooBarBletch alone?" Readers who find that an article is cross-posted and who do not subscribe to the intended followup group will know that they will have to subscribe to the followup group or miss out on the discussion. As a side effect, this may also help to reduce traffic slightly, due to the reduced number of followups generated from persons only peripherally involved in a discussion, outside the primary newsgroup. Opinion, countersuggestion, improvement? Karl
ambar@mit-eddie.UUCP (04/08/87)
In article <207@cbstr1.att.com> Karl.Kleinpaste@cbstr1.att.com writes: >I suggest that postings which have more than one newsgroup specified >be required to have a Followup-To: line. If an article is composed >with multiple newsgroups, the poster will have to add a Followup-To: >of his own to specify the ONE group to which followups will go. If >the poster does not edit in such a line, inews will automatically >insert such a line, using the first newsgroup requested as the >intended followup group. I think this is a good idea, EXCEPT for having inews automagically insert the Followup-To line if none is inserted. Instead, the article should be "dropped" and put in dead.article, much like articles with no Groups: line. My rationale is this: the writer should have to put in the line, so that if they only subscribe to comp.foobar, and all the replies go to comp.fuzzbar, they won't be left wondering what happened (or worse yet, reposting....) -- AMBAR ARPA: ambar@eddie.mit.edu UUCP: {backbones}!mit-eddie!ambar
fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (04/09/87)
I think this is a bad idea. Granted, there are, uh, "ignorant" people who can't properly decide which newsgroup(s) a given discussion should be in, but I still think that there are discussions that should be cross-posted en toto. Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu
allbery@ncoast.UUCP (04/09/87)
As quoted from <207@cbstr1.att.com> by Karl.Kleinpaste@cbstr1.att.com: +--------------- | I suggest that postings which have more than one newsgroup specified | be required to have a Followup-To: line. If an article is composed | with multiple newsgroups, the poster will have to add a Followup-To: | of his own to specify the ONE group to which followups will go. If | the poster does not edit in such a line, inews will automatically | insert such a line, using the first newsgroup requested as the | intended followup group. | | Opinion, countersuggestion, improvement? +--------------- In the And-You-Can-Have-This-Feature-NOW department: I use this in my RN startup file; put it in RNINIT for systemwide use (remember to delete the \ at the end of lines and join it into one line!): -ENEWSHEADER="Newsgroups: %F\\nSubject: %[subject]\\nReferences: %R\\n\ Reply-To: %L@%H.UUCP (%N)\\nFollowup-To: %(%F=^\\([^,]*\\),.*$?%1:%F)\\n\ Distribution: %D\\nOrganization: %o\\n\\n" Note the Followup-To: expression: it pulls the first newsgroup in the list and makes that the single Followup-To: newsgroup. ++Brando -- .--, .-----------, Brandon S. Allbery cbatt!cwruecmp!ncoast!allbery Y .-, .-, .-, aXcess Company ncoast!allbery@case.CSNET .--,| +-' `-, `-, 6615 Center St. #A1-105 (@relay.cs.net) | A `-' `-' `-' Mentor, OH 44060-4101 MCIMail: BALLBERY `--' `-----------' +01 216 974 9210 (UANet: "UANet FlagShip":Sysop)
Karl.Kleinpaste@cbstr1.UUCP (04/09/87)
fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU writes:
I still think that there are discussions that should be
cross-posted en toto.
I'm just curious: What sorts of discussions do you think belong in
more than 1 newsgroup? I ask because you're the first person to
suggest that it was an all-around bad idea; I have a small army of
positive responses in my mail, with a couple caveats about it (e.g.,
notes interface complications). But this is the first outright
complaint I've seen.
Karlfair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) (04/13/87)
To be honest, I don't have a specific example of a discussion in mind when I object to your proposal, Karl. I simply believe that in the universe of USENET discussions (or debates) there are some that should be cross-posted to more than one group, and that we should not take away the capability to do so. In other words, it's a feature, not a bug. Counter-Proposal: stick your idea in postnews, rather than inews, so that those of us who know what we're doing can trivially circumvent it, by deleting headers while in the editor, or whatever. The basic problem you're trying to attack (people too ignorant to pick appropriate newsgroup(s) for their postings) is a tough nut to crack. You should keep at it. I just don't think that removing functionality is the right way to solve what appears to me to be, fundamentally, an education problem. Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu P.S. I've spent almost two years using a conferencing system that, until recently, did not have any type of "cross-posting" facility, despite the fact it is running on a UNIX system. It was very painful to do without.