kjones@talos.uucp (Kyle Jones) (11/15/89)
Bob Sloane writes: > [...] there just isn't any mechanism for renaming a group. The best > you can do is delete the old group and create a new one. [...] > While renaming is a good idea (IMHO) it just isn't technically > feasable. Some procedure needs to be ordained for renaming groups, in preparation for the day when a group really needs to be renamed. So, to start the discussion, my idea of how a rename should be done appears below. To rename <old-group> to <new-group>, 1. Issue a "newgroup <new-group>" control message. 2. Post note to news.admin asking admins to alias <old-group> to <new-group> at their sites. 3. After a short period of time to allow the above newgroup to propagate, say one day, issue a "newgroup <old-group> moderated" control message. This will inhibit further postings to the old group. 4. After allowing enough time for articles in <old-group> to expire normally, say 21 days, issue a "rmgroup <old-group>" to remove the old newsgroup.
sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu (11/15/89)
In article <1989Nov14.191833.19704@talos.uucp>, kjones@talos.uucp (Kyle Jones) writes: > Some procedure needs to be ordained for renaming groups, in preparation > for the day when a group really needs to be renamed. Why? Saying that a group "really needs to be renamed" implies that it must have been mis-named in the first place. Now my personal opinion is that there are probably quite a few mis-named groups, but I suspect that several people would disagree with me, both about the need to rename a particular group, and what the new name should be. While there may be groups where the name isn't perfect (rec.games.frp may be an example), are the names really bad enough that we would want to go through the hassle of renaming them? > So, to start the > discussion, my idea of how a rename should be done appears below. > > To rename <old-group> to <new-group>, > > 1. Issue a "newgroup <new-group>" control message. OK so far. At my site, and probably several others, this will cause a mail message to go to me, asking me to create the group. Assuming I think the request is ligitimate, I will probably do it. At other sites the group will just automatically get created. > 2. Post note to news.admin asking admins to alias <old-group> to > <new-group> at their sites. I suspect that news.groups would be a better place for this. After all, its purpose is to discuss what happens to news groups. And even if you post something there, and there is a consensus that changing the name is a "Good Thing" (TM) 10% of the sites on the net won't do it, because their admin doesn't know how, or doesn't care, or doesn't exist. > 3. After a short period of time to allow the above newgroup to > propagate, say one day, issue a "newgroup <old-group> moderated" > control message. This will inhibit further postings to the old > group. Wait a minute. I don't know about your software, but most news packages will just mail the posted article off to a backbone site. Of course it will bounce, since the backbone sites weren't expecting it. What happens from there is unclear, but I suspect that it isn't something that we would want to find out. > 4. After allowing enough time for articles in <old-group> to expire > normally, say 21 days, issue a "rmgroup <old-group>" to remove the > old newsgroup. And there would still be a few sites carrying the group. I still see occasional articles from soc.singles.nice, and that isn't even a ligimate group and never was! Sending out rmgroup message only deletes the group at most of the sites, not all. I suppose the above procedure would work (except making the group moderated) to rename a group. Technically it is possible to do something like this. The real problem is political. How do you decide if renaming is needed, and if so hwo do you decide on the name? There are guidelines for group creations, but renaming and deleting groups is something that hasn't been tried yet. There is currently a discussion going on in news.groups about renaming comp.emacs to comp.editors.emacs. Perhaps something will come out of that, but I really doubt it. And in the case of rec.games.frp, I really don't see any need for a change. -- USmail: Bob Sloane, University of Kansas Computer Center, Lawrence, KS, 66045 E-mail: sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu, sloane@ukanvax.bitnet, AT&T: (913)864-0444
kjones@talos.uucp (Kyle Jones) (11/17/89)
I write: > Some procedure needs to be ordained for renaming groups, in preparation > for the day when a group really needs to be renamed. Bob Sloane writes: > Why? Saying that a group "really needs to be renamed" implies that > it must have been mis-named in the first place. [...] While there > may be groups where the name isn't perfect (rec.games.frp may be an > example), are the names really bad enough that we would want to go > through the hassle of renaming them? I think so, but I guess that's obvious. I can't see avoiding cleanup of the USENET namespace just because some news administrators won't do their jobs. This allows the people who care the least about USENET to have the most influence. In my proposal I write: > 2. Post note to news.admin asking admins to alias <old-group> to > <new-group> at their sites. Bob responds: > I suspect that news.groups would be a better place for this. After all, its > purpose is to discuss what happens to news groups. No, this is to take place after the discussion and voting has already been done. My intent is to notify the admins, and notify them in a newsgroup they are likely to read. > And even if you post something there, and there is a consensus that > changing the name is a "Good Thing" (TM) 10% of the sites on the net > won't do it, because their admin doesn't know how, or doesn't care, > or doesn't exist. If we can get 90% of the sites to set up the alias, the remaining 10% won't be a problem. I do think 90% is a pretty optimistic figure, though. Still, if consensus is reached in the appropriate forum, the rename should occur. We could wait forever for laggard admins to start properly maintaining their news systems. There are sites still running 2.9 netnews! me again: > 3. After a short period of time to allow the above newgroup to > propagate, say one day, issue a "newgroup <old-group> moderated" > control message. This will inhibit further postings to the old > group. Bob responds: > Wait a minute. I don't know about your software, but most news > packages will just mail the posted article off to a backbone site. > Of course it will bounce, since the backbone sites weren't expecting > it. What happens from there is unclear, but I suspect that it isn't > something that we would want to find out. I can't think of a better way to keep people from posting new stuff to the old group. I don't see a problem with this. Anyone else? me again: > 4. After allowing enough time for articles in <old-group> to expire > normally, say 21 days, issue a "rmgroup <old-group>" to remove the > old newsgroup. Bob responds: > And there would still be a few sites carrying the group. Who cares? Even the most mismanaged USENET nodes will come around eventaully. As for the truly recalcitrant, well, that is their right. > I suppose the above procedure would work (except making the group > moderated) to rename a group. Technically it is possible to do > something like this. The real problem is political. How do you > decide if renaming is needed, and if so hwo do you decide on the > name? There are guidelines for group creations, but renaming and > deleting groups is something that hasn't been tried yet. For now, we use the existing guidelines until it is convincingly shown that different guidelines are needed for newsgroup deletion. > There is currently a discussion going on in news.groups about > renaming comp.emacs to comp.editors.emacs. Perhaps something will > come out of that, but I really doubt it. Hope springs eternal. In any event, I feel obliged to try. kyle jones <kjones@talos.uu.net> ...!uunet!talos!kjones