jonathan@cs.keele.ac.uk (Jonathan Knight) (11/26/88)
Hi there. I would like to know who is supposed to decide
whether an article gets propagated or not. Over here in the
UK I'm getting articles for groups ny.*, seattle.*, wi.*, att.*,
and a host of other distributions which I not supposed to get at all.
Sites have processed these articles who are outside the distribution
but all the sites passed them on, which is a waste of time and money.
What I'd like to know is: is the receiving site supposed to decide
if the article should be accepted, or should the sending site
decide whether to transmit it in the first place. The first
method saves time and money in transmitting useless articles,
while the second method allows the receiving site to decide whether
to have a newsgroup without involving anyone else.
--
_____ Jonathan Knight, | JANET: jonathan@uk.ac.keele.cs
/ Department of Computer Science | other: jonathan@cs.keele.ac.uk
/ _ __ University of Keele, Keele, | BITNET:jonathan%cs.kl.ac.uk@ukacrl
(_/ (_) / / Staffordshire. ST5 5BG. U.K. | Last Resort:...!ukc!kl-cs!jonathannagel@paris.ics.uci.edu (Mark Nagel) (11/27/88)
In article <432@kl-cs.UUCP>, jonathan@cs (Jonathan Knight) writes: |Hi there. I would like to know who is supposed to decide |whether an article gets propagated or not. Over here in the |UK I'm getting articles for groups ny.*, seattle.*, wi.*, att.*, |and a host of other distributions which I not supposed to get at all. |Sites have processed these articles who are outside the distribution |but all the sites passed them on, which is a waste of time and money. | |What I'd like to know is: is the receiving site supposed to decide |if the article should be accepted, or should the sending site |decide whether to transmit it in the first place. The first |method saves time and money in transmitting useless articles, |while the second method allows the receiving site to decide whether |to have a newsgroup without involving anyone else. Each site decides what distribution to send to each of its neighbors. If your neighbor is in the usa distribution as are you, then you exchange the usa distribution, and so on. What you've observed is that some people like to crosspost to local and non-local newsgroups. Then, the group name is carried along to the non-local group and appears in the news logs as a bad group name. It's even more fun when, as has happened here occassionally, someone crossposts to a local and non-local group and you happen to have the local group as one of your own local groups. People write me letters asking why something from Georgia ends up in our ics.general group. I tell 'em I just work here and scratch my head. Seems to work... :-) Mark Nagel @ UC Irvine, Dept of Info and Comp Sci ARPA: nagel@ics.uci.edu | radiation: n. ... 2. smog with an UUCP: {sdcsvax,ucbvax}!ucivax!nagel | attitude.
roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (11/27/88)
jonathan@cs.keele.ac.uk (Jonathan Knight) writes: > is the receiving site supposed to decide if the article should be > accepted, or should the sending site decide whether to transmit it The quick answer is "both". If a receiving site des not have the appropriate groups and/or distributions for an incomming article, it will get junked. Of course, as Johathan pointed out, you still pay to transmit the bits from one place to the other (i.e. phone charges). Much better to talk to whoever is sending you the stuff you don't want and get them to stop (i.e. take the offending groups/distribitions) out of your line in their sys file. -- Roy Smith, System Administrator Public Health Research Institute {allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers}!phri!roy -or- phri!roy@uunet.uu.net "The connector is the network"
dtynan@sultra.UUCP (Der Tynan) (11/30/88)
In article <432@kl-cs.UUCP>, jonathan@cs.keele.ac.uk (Jonathan Knight) writes: > Hi there. I would like to know who is supposed to decide > whether an article gets propagated or not. Over here in the > UK I'm getting articles for groups ny.*, seattle.*, wi.*, att.*, > > What I'd like to know is: is the receiving site supposed to decide > if the article should be accepted, or should the sending site > decide whether to transmit it in the first place. The first > > _____ Jonathan Knight, | JANET: jonathan@uk.ac.keele.cs In answer to your first question, it is common for postings to multiple newsgroups to do this. For example, for some inane reason, say I post to ba.wanted, and comp.sources.wanted. Well, you'll receive (or *should* receive) the article, even though 'ba.' is in the Newsgroups line. This is only a problem if you try to followup the article, as inews will complain about the strange group. For some reason, the biggest offenders are 'att.*'. However, if you are receiving stuff which is primarily intended for the subnet, and not cross-posted, you do indeed have a problem. Your first line of attack should be to look at the Path line, to see who has been handling the errant article. I see from your paths that UKC is your feed. I could be wrong, but I believe UKC has some sort of charge for this kind of thing. At any rate, they are paying *something* for reception of these bogus groups. It should really be they who are bothered by this. Send them mail (and also to the US site in the Paths field), and ask them what is going on. As to your second question, the answer is BOTH. Basically, the sending site will only forward those groups which are in the 'sys' file for the remote (receiving) site. So, for sites within those metropolitan areas, the US site will forward news, but *should not* send it to UKC (or any other long- distance feed). Also, if the bogus groups don't exist in the 'sys' file for the receiving site (UKC, I presume), then it should junk them. Hope this helps. - Der -- dtynan@zorba.Tynan.COM (Dermot Tynan @ Tynan Computers) {apple,mips,pyramid,uunet}!Tynan.COM!dtynan --- If the Law is for the People, then why do we need Lawyers? ---