steve@nuchat.UUCP (Steve Nuchia) (10/05/87)
As I read through a stack of used car adds from New Jersey last night a thought occurred to me: There is a mechanism in place, at least in the latest news software, for supplying a narrow default distribution. For instance, articles for misc.test have a default distribution of 'local'. Now, is the mechanism used for this general enough to be expanded to limit misc.forsale items to some region around the poster? I see one problem with this immediately: 'local' is an alias with a useful definition everywhere and there is no corresponding 'regional' distribution that will work. To get around this problem the news software would have to know yet another configuration parameter, the 'regional distribution'. Alternatively postnews could supply _no_ default distribution, forcing the user to think about it. Yet another alternative would be to somehow designate, either by position or by some mark, one line from LIBDIR/distributions as the regional default. -- Steve Nuchia | [...] but the machine would probably be allowed no mercy. uunet!nuchat!steve | In other words then, if a machine is expected to be (713) 334 6720 | infallible, it cannot be intelligent. - Alan Turing, 1947
kevin@kosman.UUCP (Kevin O'Gorman) (10/08/87)
In article <372@nuchat.UUCP> steve@nuchat.UUCP (Steve Nuchia) writes: >As I read through a stack of used car adds from New Jersey last night >a thought occurred to me: There is a mechanism in place, at least >in the latest news software, for supplying a narrow default distribution. > > ... [ more stuff about getting a narrow distribution into the postings ] Well, I have lived in New Jersey recently, and I remember what was un- helpful about these regional distributions. There was no way to get two of them to apply. There was 'nj' and 'ny' and probably 'pa' (though I never saw that where I lived). Now if you lived (as most people in New Jersey do) near a major out-of-state metro center, you probably wanted your posting to go there too. The smallest distribution that would do it was 'usa'. What was needed was either larger regional distributions, or a way to have several smaller ones on a posting. Perhaps then news could be trained to default misc.forsale postings to such a distribution. There could be other newsgroups that usually wanted a local distribution also. -- Kevin O'Gorman ( kevin@kosman ) Vital Computer Systems, Oxnard, CA 93035
roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (10/13/87)
In article <307@kosman.UUCP> kevin@kosman.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE) writes: > I remember what was unhelpful about these regional distributions. There > was no way to get two of them to apply. I often post to ny and nj without any trouble. All I do is put "ny.general, nj.general" (the later actually being a group about a local defunct AFL football team :-)) as the newsgroups, with a distribution of "usa". Seems to work fine. Granted, it would be nice to be able to post to, say, rec.auto, with a distribution of "ny,nj", but it's not necessary. Now, for the $64k question -- has anybody ever actually sold a house, or even a car, as a result of a usenet for-sale posting? -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
dave@westmark.UUCP (Dave Levenson) (10/15/87)
In article <2958@phri.UUCP>, roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: > Now, for the $64k question -- has anybody ever actually sold a > house, or even a car, as a result of a usenet for-sale posting? I have advertised both a house and a car on usenet. Both ads produced a number of phone calls or e-mail contacts, and a smaller number of interested visitors. As it happens, however, the car was sold to the man who lived accross the street (he saw the sign as I was putting it on the car). The house was visited by several net-readers, but was ultimately sold to a contact brought in by a realtor. -- Dave Levenson Westmark, Inc. A node for news. Warren, NJ USA {rutgers | clyde | mtune | ihnp4}!westmark!dave
lindsay@cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk (Lindsay F. Marshall) (10/15/87)
Some people seem to be missing the point here. What we need is the ability to send with distributions totally alien to your local domain. For example, if I were planning a trip to New York, I might wish to ask in rec.music.folk for suggestions for places I might go to hear some music. I therefore want to post the article with a distribution of ny and have the UK backbone forward this across the Atlantic where the message would then be shipped to a site within the ny distribution whereupon the message would propagate itself to all the appropriate sites. This works fine for mail (for those who use proper mailers :-) ) so why shouldnt it work for mail as well? It would certainly elimnate an awful lot of rubbish from the net.....mind would there would be a lot less rubbish if people actually used ANY sort of distributions other than world! Lindsay -- Lindsay F. Marshall JANET: lindsay@uk.ac.newcastle.cheviot ARPA: lindsay%cheviot.newcastle@ucl-cs PHONE: +44-91-2329233 UUCP: <UK>!ukc!cheviot!lindsay "How can you be in two places at once when you're not any by14/3 a bitar
david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack) (10/24/87)
In article <2456@cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk> lindsay@cheviot (Lindsay F. Marshall) writes: >Some people seem to be missing the point here. What we need is the >ability to send with distributions totally alien to your local domain. >For example, if I were planning a trip to New York, I might wish to ask >in rec.music.folk for suggestions for places I might go to hear some >music. I therefore want to post the article with a distribution of ny >and have the UK backbone forward this across the Atlantic where the >message would then be shipped to a site within the ny distribution >whereupon the message would propagate itself to all the appropriate >sites. well, I'll tell you why it won't work now. Distribution names are not unique across the whole network. For an example, there is a "uk" distribution here at UK (That is, the University of Kentucky). I happen to know that y'all over thar in the other UK (United Kingdom) ALSO have a "uk" distribution ... Wouldn't it be rather confusing for someone in YOUR uk wanting to post a question to one of our uk groups? On the other hand one of the fortunes in /usr/games/fortune says: Any problem can be solved with a suitable level of indirection. -- <---- David Herron, Local E-Mail Hack, david@ms.uky.edu, david@ms.uky.csnet <---- {rutgers,uunet,cbosgd}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET <---- I thought that time was this neat invention that kept everything <---- from happening at once. Why doesn't this work in practice?