chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) (06/08/91)
According to mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*): >How many people would take the time to sit and correct mistakes, >to research sources, to carefully edit considered responses, if >all that work could end up being thrown away through no fault of >the user, and without the user being told? Although I agree that failure notices are desirable, I must point out a vital fact that Mathew seems to be ignoring: A user who chooses his news software poorly will get burned, no matter what. It can be (and has been) argued that the loss of an article that is not RFC-compliant is "no fault of the user." I disagree. Each user chooses which system and what software to use for posting to Usenet. If a user chooses a system with news software (rn and B News, for example) with which it is possible for invalid articles to escape to neighbor systems, then that user has made a poor choice of service provider. If that poor choice results in lost articles, the user who made that choice has no one to blame but himself. In other words: The author of a bad article may not realize that he is to blame for that article's loss; but he is, anyway. Caveat postor. -- Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT <chip@tct.com>, <uunet!pdn!tct!chip> perl -e 'sub do { print "extinct!\n"; } do do()'
mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) (06/10/91)
chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: > A user who chooses his news software poorly > will get burned, no matter what. Now that is an argument I can sympathize with. Unfortunately, those of us who don't happen to run UNIX tend not to have much choice about the news software we run. > It can be (and has been) argued that the loss of an article that is > not RFC-compliant is "no fault of the user." I disagree. > > Each user chooses which system and what software to use for posting to > Usenet. No. Each system administrator chooses the system and software. The user may have had nothing whatsoever to do with that (possibly bad) choice, and may be powerless to change it. So if you punish users, you will still end up punishing the innocent. mathew
cudep@warwick.ac.uk (Ian Dickinson) (06/11/91)
In article <ku2B432w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) writes: >chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >> A user who chooses his news software poorly >> will get burned, no matter what. >Unfortunately, those of us who don't happen to run UNIX tend not to have much >choice about the news software we run. Although I'm not so sure about VMS or IBM boxes, I thought there was quite a good selection of MS-DOSn't news software? >No. Each system administrator chooses the system and software. The user may >have had nothing whatsoever to do with that (possibly bad) choice, and may be >powerless to change it. So if you punish users, you will still end up >punishing the innocent. True, it is usually the sysadmin who chooses what software is run. And if it causes articles to be dropped, the users will string him up if he doesn't fix it. -- \/ato /'\ /`\ Ian Dickinson TED KALDIS FOR PRESIDENT! /^^^\/^^^\ vato@warwick.ac.uk /TWIN/TEATS\ @c=GB@o=University of Warwick@ou=Computing Services@cn=Ian Dickinson / \
aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul Crowley) (06/11/91)
In article <ku2B432w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) writes: >So if you punish users, you will still end up punishing the innocent. As far as software goes, it's not a good thing to punish even the guilty. ____ \/ o\ Paul Crowley aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk \ / /\__/ Part straight. Part gay. All queer. \/ "I say we kill him and eat his brain." "That's not the solution to _every_ problem, you know!" -- Rudy Rucker
mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) (06/12/91)
cudep@warwick.ac.uk (Ian Dickinson) writes: > Although I'm not so sure about VMS or IBM boxes, I thought there was quite > a good selection of MS-DOSn't news software? I was thinking more about the software I run on the Atari ST. > True, it is usually the sysadmin who chooses what software is run. > And if it causes articles to be dropped, the users will string him up > if he doesn't fix it. Right. But first they have to somehow find out about the dropping. mathew
chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) (06/14/91)
According to mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*): >Unfortunately, those of us who don't happen to run UNIX tend not to have >much choice about the news software we run. The packages for MS-DOS Usenet access are several. >> Each user chooses which system and what software to use for posting to >> Usenet. > >No. Each system administrator chooses the system and software. Rather, each system's administrator chooses the software, and each user chooses administrator/system/software as a package. >The user may have had nothing whatsoever to do with that (possibly bad) >choice ... The user chooses whether to use the system or not. That choice is made each time he is about to post an article. He *is* responsible. >So if you punish users, you will still end up punishing the innocent. Who said anything about punishment? I'm talking about the facts of life, not trying to set policy. -- Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT <chip@tct.com>, <uunet!pdn!tct!chip> "You can call Usenet a democracy if you want to. You can call it a totalitarian dictatorship run by space aliens and the ghost of Elvis. It doesn't matter either way." -- Dave Mack
chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) (06/18/91)
According to aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul Crowley):
>I'm curious that you're raising this non-issue, though.
Too many people have referred to article mangling that occurs "through
no fault of the poster." There is no such thing.
Each poster chooses her method for Usenet access. If she chooses a
method that does not protect against the creation of invalid articles,
then she is responsible for the consequences of that choice.
--
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT <chip@tct.com>, <uunet!pdn!tct!chip>
"You can call Usenet a democracy if you want to. You can call it a
totalitarian dictatorship run by space aliens and the ghost of Elvis.
It doesn't matter either way." -- Dave Mackxanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (06/25/91)
mills@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Gary Mills) writes: > xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) writes: >> A response from a misc.test autoreply daemon >> provides proof only that your article meets the >> compliance checks of _some_ path of machines >> between your site and that autoreply site. > Maybe somebody should design an autoreply daemon > that does strict checking against all the news > RFCs and replies with a conformance report? No question, that is the first truly _useful_ suggestion in this long discussion. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>