mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) (06/10/91)
spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) writes: > Admittedly, the postings should not be expired frequently. Proposition: The expire software should examine the Expires: field for the postings in news.announce.newusers, *whether the system administrator asks it to or not*. In other words, if system administrators want to junk the news.announce.newusers postings, they should have to put in some effort to do so. This will decrease the number of "Help, where are the introductory articles?" postings which plague every newsgroup. mathew
zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (Dan Zerkle) (06/11/91)
In article <q63B435w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) writes: > >The expire software should examine the Expires: field for the postings in >news.announce.newusers, *whether the system administrator asks it to or not*. > >In other words, if system administrators want to junk the >news.announce.newusers postings, they should have to put in some effort to do >so. > >This will decrease the number of "Help, where are the introductory articles?" >postings which plague every newsgroup. Not only "yes," but "Hell, yes." I would extend that. I would have the software always examine the Expires: line whenever it is on any moderated group. The second half of the month, I always seem to get these loser submissions from people who have not read the instructions for comp.sys.amiga.announce (I moderate). These are annoying for several reasons. First, I get lots of submissions that just aren't appropriate. Who enjoys rejecting people's efforts? Second, for those that are appropriate, I end up suggesting a lot of edits. Third, and most importantly, messages submitted by the "post-and-forward" method (as opposed to mailing them to the proper submissions address, as per the instructions) invariably screw up the aliasing mechanism my sysadmin was so kind as to give me. When I am out of town, these will not get forwarded to my backup moderator, and will not be dealt with in a timely manner. I like to have a 24-hour turnaround for this group, so this is a real problem. When I tell these folks that they need to go read the instructions, they tell me they can't find them. MOST annoying. The Expires: line is so useless that the FAQ file for rec.games.hack is simply re-posted very frequently (weekly or bi-weekly--I forget). This rather defeats the intent of those systems that ignore the Expires: line. I don't know if Matthew's idea is the best way to deal with the Expires: issue. However, something should be done to make it work better. Dan Zerkle zerkle@iris.eecs.ucdavis.edu (916) 754-0240 Amiga... Because life is too short for boring computers.
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) (06/12/91)
In article <q63B435w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) writes: >spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) writes: >The expire software should examine the Expires: field for the postings in >news.announce.newusers, *whether the system administrator asks it to or not*. Where did you get the idea that it doesn't? Both B News and C News expire, by default, always respect the Expires: header, although C News expire lets the sysadmin set bounds on it. (We ship with a default 90-day bound in our sample explist file.) Like it or lump it, it is ultimately the sysadmin's decision whether he wants to spend disk space on keeping articles on line for long periods of time, all the more so because there is no restriction on who can put Expires: lines on their articles or how silly those lines can be. -- "We're thinking about upgrading from | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology SunOS 4.1.1 to SunOS 3.5." | henry@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry
bernie@metapro.DIALix.oz.au (Bernd Felsche) (06/12/91)
In <1991Jun11.173229.21529@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >Where did you get the idea that it doesn't? Both B News and C News expire, by >default, always respect the Expires: header, although C News expire lets the >sysadmin set bounds on it. (We ship with a default 90-day bound in our sample >explist file.) And another feature is that one set expiry criteria based on moderation state. This is important, as it allows paying attention to the Expires: lines only in moderated groups. Every little bit helps. -- Bernd Felsche, _--_|\ #include <std/disclaimer.h> Metapro Systems, / sold \ Fax: +61 9 472 3337 328 Albany Highway, \_.--._/ Phone: +61 9 362 9355 Victoria Park, Western Australia v Email: bernie@metapro.DIALix.oz.au
mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) (06/13/91)
henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: > In article <q63B435w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a * > >The expire software should examine the Expires: field for the postings in > >news.announce.newusers, *whether the system administrator asks it to or not* > > Where did you get the idea that it doesn't? Both B News and C News expire, b > default, always respect the Expires: header, although C News expire lets the > sysadmin set bounds on it. I know. I'm suggesting that it shouldn't just be the default; expire should be hard-wired to use the Expires: header for news.announce.newusers, so that the system administrator has to put in some moderately hard work to get rid of the introductory postings. The impression I get is that a lot of system administrators switch off Expires: header processing globally, and give a flat n-day expire to the news.* hierarchy. > Like it or lump it, it is ultimately the sysadmin's decision whether he wants > to spend disk space on keeping articles on line for long periods of time, all > the more so because there is no restriction on who can put Expires: lines on > their articles or how silly those lines can be. I don't think that silly Expires: lines in news.announce.newusers are a problem. mathew
mrm@sceard.Sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy) (06/18/91)
In article <aTgH411w164w@mantis.co.uk> mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) writes: [...] >I know. I'm suggesting that it shouldn't just be the default; expire should >be hard-wired to use the Expires: header for news.announce.newusers, so that >the system administrator has to put in some moderately hard work to get rid of >the introductory postings. The impression I get is that a lot of system >administrators switch off Expires: header processing globally, and give a >flat n-day expire to the news.* hierarchy. $ rm /usr/spool/news/news/announce/newusers/* $ echo "This is not hard work, not even moderately hard." $ echo "mathew, would you like to borrow a clue?" -- Mike Murphy mrm@Sceard.COM ucsd!sceard!mrm +1 619 598 5874