weemba@brahms (Matthew P Wiener) (11/08/86)
Summary: Expires: Sender: Followup-To: Distribution: Keywords: OK everybody, we've all seen the growing rash of people padding their postings with 50% rule killers. I hate line-eaters, I hate **REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR IDIOTISMS**, and I hate most big signatures (Bob Averack's is the major exception), but I positively cannot stand these deadwood 50% rule killers. Am I alone here? I propose that it be lowered to 40% new material, applied to longer postings only, and that the bounce message be more to the point, with strong encouragement to edit/paraphrase the original better. If the major point was to get rid of running puns, then just say so and ban them directly. (They've mostly died out, thank Gene Spafford.) ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720
sewilco@mecc.UUCP (Scot E. Wilcoxon) (11/09/86)
In article <212@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU writes: >OK everybody, we've all seen the growing rash of people padding their >postings with 50% rule killers. I hate line-eaters, I hate **REPLACE ... >I propose that it be lowered to 40% new material, applied to longer >postings only, and that the bounce message be more to the point, with >strong encouragement to edit/paraphrase the original better. ... Most important is a friendlier rejection interface, so people can be told what is wrong and given a chance to easily remedy it. (I'm an Rn user) Then some experimentation is needed to find an acceptable (unobtrusive but effective?) rule. Unfortunately, if the rule is made complicated, it will seem random. Personally, avoiding the 50% rule has forced me to be extremely aware of my quote/comment ratio. When in doubt and unable to reduce quotes any further, I do prefer to defeat quoting rather than face "dead.article". -- Scot E. Wilcoxon Minn Ed Comp Corp {quest,dayton,meccts}!mecc!sewilco (612)481-3507 sewilco@mecc.MECC.COM ihnp4!meccts!mecc!sewilco Laws are society's common sense, recorded for the stupid. The alert question everything and most laws are obvious to them.
rissa@chinet.UUCP (Garret and Trish) (11/10/86)
Matthew P Wiener writes: >OK everybody, we've all seen the growing rash of people padding their >postings with 50% rule killers. I hate line-eaters, I hate **REPLACE >THIS LINE WITH YOUR IDIOTISMS**, and I hate most big signatures (Bob >Averack's is the major exception), but I positively cannot stand these >deadwood 50% rule killers. >Am I alone here? >I propose that it be lowered to 40% new material, applied to longer >postings only, and that the bounce message be more to the point, with >strong encouragement to edit/paraphrase the original better. I agree. Many is the time I have wanted to reply to something really stupid in soc.women with two or three carefully chosen words only to get shot down by this rule. I also hate hate hate elaborate signatures. I remember someone saying something about this a couple of years ago and pointing what it means when your signature is larger than your posting. Trisha O Tuama
IRWIN@PUCC.BITNET (Irwin Tillman) (11/10/86)
In article <751@chinet.UUCP>, rissa@chinet.UUCP (Garret and Trish) writes: >Many is the time I have wanted to reply to something really stupid >in soc.women with two or three carefully chosen words only to get >shot down by this rule. We follow the 50% rule here, except when the article body is <=15 lines; in that case, we let it go. Irwin Tillman BITNET: IRWIN@PUCC Princeton University UUCP: allegra!psuvax1!PUCC.BITNET!IRWIN ARPA: IRWIN%PUCC.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
stephen@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Stephen J. Muir) (11/11/86)
Well, I'm going to delete that code when I install 2.11, so there. I suspect I won't be alone. We have enough trouble with certain sites changing message IDs and re-injecting news articles without worrying about piffling things like this. In any case, I shall also be installing FASCIST, so any user who insists on including a load of junk will be disauthorised (is that the right word?). -- EMAIL: stephen@comp.lancs.ac.uk | Post: University of Lancaster, UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!stephen | Department of Computing, Phone: +44 524 65201 Ext. 4120 | Bailrigg, Lancaster, UK. Project:Alvey ECLIPSE Distribution | LA1 4YR
osmigo1@ut-ngp.UUCP (Ron Morgan) (11/11/86)
I (and I suspect many others) have often been guilty of "padding" text, just
to get my post up. Not necessarily padding with empty lines or garbage, but
just blabbering endlessly to fill up space. Here are a few ideas that might
be worth thinking about:
1. Maybe the 50% could go into effect ONLY if the included text exceeded 24
lines (or one screenful).
2. How about a FLAT LIMIT on how much can be included in ANY case? You can
easily transfer the gist of a post in less than a screenful.
3. How about a limit on the number of "levels" of included text? I normally
pounce on the "n" key when I see a message starting off with 5 >'s....
Ron Morgan
--
osmigo1, UTexas Computation Center, Austin, Texas 78712
ARPA: osmigo1@ngp.UTEXAS.EDU
UUCP: ihnp4!ut-ngp!osmigo1 allegra!ut-ngp!osmigo1 gatech!ut-ngp!osmigo1
seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!osmigo1 harvard!ut-sally!ut-ngp!osmigo1karl@haddock.UUCP (Karl Heuer) (11/12/86)
In article <212@cartan.Berkeley.EDU> weemba@brahms.BERKELEY.EDU (Matthew P Wiener) writes: >OK everybody, we've all seen the growing rash of people padding their >postings with 50% rule killers. I hate line-eaters, I hate **REPLACE >THIS LINE WITH YOUR IDIOTISMS**, and I hate most big signatures (Bob >Averack's is the major exception), but I positively cannot stand these >deadwood 50% rule killers. Ditto to all of the above. We don't seem to have the 50% rule here, but it seems to me that there's no excuse for adding the "deadwood". If a user's news-posting program thinks he has overquoted, and he disagrees, surely it's not difficult to disguise quotes with something like "1,$s/^>/|/"? Certainly that's less irritating than adding twenty copies of "inews wants more lines"! Karl W. Z. Heuer (ima!haddock!karl or karl@haddock.isc.com), The Walking Lint (The above editor command is not intended to substitute for real editing; e.g. one should (almost) always delete the respondee's .signature first.)
rcd@ico.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (11/13/86)
> OK everybody, we've all seen the growing rash of people padding their > postings with 50% rule killers... > ...I positively cannot stand these deadwood 50% rule killers. > Am I alone here? They bug me too, yet I wrote my first add-some-drivel-to-get-it-out paragraph back when playing with 2.10.3, and I'll probably do it again in the future. I guess we should take it as a painful lesson in human engineering of software...I think the problem was predictable. If you DIDN'T edit the parent article down to get rid of junk, you might feel duly chastised by the complaint and go back to take care of it. But suppose that you already spent some time trimming the included text...it just happened to be messy to trim. Suppose further that you found you could say what you wanted to say fairly concisely. The stupid posting gets bounced, and as I remember it's inews that bounces it so you can't conveniently dodge it. The first reaction is probably anger at software that's trying to be smarter than it can be, and the first response is probably to try to foil the software... after all, you already complied with the rule (Don't include extraneous text) in spirit, right? So you do what you must to comply with the letter of the rule. > I propose that it be lowered to 40% new material, applied to longer > postings only, and that the bounce message be more to the point, with > strong encouragement to edit/paraphrase the original better. I suggest that those of us who don't need quite so much hand-holding out of the software put in hooks (which may be slightly difficult for rank neophytes to find) to disable the checking. There's an awful lot of this sort of help-for-the-novice/annoyance-for-the-frequent-user in 2.11. (If I have to watch that essay out of postnews on choosing newsgroups one more time at 1200 baud or below, I swear I'll kill it even if it means adb-ing the postnews object file!) -- Dick Dunn {hao,nbires,cbosgd}!ico!rcd (303)449-2870 ...Cerebus for dictator!
rlw@briar.UUCP (Richard Wexelblat) (11/14/86)
If the 50% rule were waived for postings of <25 lines, most of the complaints and fillers would go away.
ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Ken Arromdee) (11/15/86)
>I (and I suspect many others) have often been guilty of "padding" text, just >to get my post up. Not necessarily padding with empty lines or garbage, but >just blabbering endlessly to fill up space. Here are a few ideas that might >be worth thinking about: >1. Maybe the 50% could go into effect ONLY if the included text exceeded 24 > lines (or one screenful). >2. How about a FLAT LIMIT on how much can be included in ANY case? You can > easily transfer the gist of a post in less than a screenful. >3. How about a limit on the number of "levels" of included text? I normally > pounce on the "n" key when I see a message starting off with 5 >'s.... So all that has to be done is for the posters to use their text editor to substitute another character for the > character. (and if inews is modified to check for any repeating character, it's not too hard to write a filter that would replace each > with a random character from the set >,],),}, etc...) Flat limits: Sure... then you could modify Pnews to post articles in pieces if they are over 24 lines long.... Number of levels: if someone writes a filter to put in random characters, this could be defeated simply by an extension of the same program. -- Never look a gift horse in the mouth, but beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Kenneth Arromdee BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS CSNET: ins_akaa@jhunix.CSNET ARPA: ins_akaa%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA UUCP: {allegra!hopkins, seismo!umcp-cs, ihnp4!whuxcc} !jhunix!ins_akaa
philip@axis.UUCP (Philip Peake) (11/15/86)
In article <641@comp.lancs.ac.uk> stephen@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Stephen J. Muir) writes: > >In any case, I shall also be installing FASCIST, so any user who insists on >including a load of junk will be disauthorised (is that the right word?). No, it certainly is not the right word. The opposite of 'allow' is 'forbid', therefore, you were looking for forbidden. Putting 'dis' in front of words is a habit used by lazy american politicians - such as 'disinvestment' rather than 'divestment'. Maybe NEWS 2.12 should have a modiffied version of spell included, so that it rejects such terrible attrocities committed against the english language ! Philip
shor@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Melinda Shore) (11/16/86)
In article <641@comp.lancs.ac.uk> stephen@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Stephen J. Muir) writes: >Well, I'm going to delete that code when I install 2.11, so there. I suspect I >won't be alone. [ ... stuff deleted ... ] >In any case, I shall also be installing FASCIST, so any user who insists on >including a load of junk will be disauthorised (is that the right word?). (No, but it's a good word). I have no intention of deleting that section of code when I install 2.11. I think the restriction is, in general, A Good Thing, and I'm going to make the very trivial mods required to do checking only if the article is bigger than, say, 20 lines. I see the FASCIST option as one to be applied punitively (and for the Greater Good, of course), not one to be used against users who ignorantly/carelessly/ innocently don't edit down included text. -- Melinda Shore ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!shor University of Chicago Computation Center XASSHOR@UCHIMVS1.Bitnet
dave@viper.UUCP (David Messer) (11/16/86)
In article <764@axis.UUCP>, philip@axis.UUCP (Philip Peake) writes: > > Maybe NEWS 2.12 should have a modiffied version of spell included, > so that it rejects such terrible attrocities committed against > the english language ! [SIC] Need I say more? -- Disclaimer: | David Messer I'm always right and I never lie. | Software Consultant My company knows this and agrees | UUCP: ihnp4!quest!viper!dave with everything I say. | ihnp4!meccts!viper!dave
shor@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Melinda Shore) (11/19/86)
In article <3943@jhunix.UUCP> ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Ken Arromdee) writes: >So all that has to be done is for the posters to use their text editor to >substitute another character for the > character. (and if inews is modified >to check for any repeating character, it's not too hard to write a filter >that would replace each > with a random character from the set >,],),}, etc...) > >Flat limits: Sure... then you could modify Pnews to post articles in pieces if >they are over 24 lines long.... > >Number of levels: if someone writes a filter to put in random characters, this >could be defeated simply by an extension of the same program. The 50% rule is there, it seems to me, to catch the careless, not the malicious. If it's going to take as much energy to beat inews as it would to edit the article, I think most users would opt for editing. We have a *lot* of accounts on sphinx (over 2500), and if people were inclined to entertain themselves by playing games with inews we'd be seeing some evidence of it. I think, though, that the front ends to inews should also check included lines so that the user will know that there's a problem before the text is passed off to inews. -- Melinda Shore ..!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!shor University of Chicago Computation Center XASSHOR@UCHIMVS1.Bitnet
james@reality1.UUCP (james) (11/20/86)
In article <641@comp.lancs.ac.uk>, stephen@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Stephen J. Muir): > Well, I'm going to delete that code when I install 2.11, so there. I suspect > I won't be alone. We have enough trouble with certain sites changing message > IDs and re-injecting news articles without worrying about piffling things like > this. Perhaps then it is time to have rnews check for include limitations when an article is received from another site. That was even if comp.lancs.ac.uk posts messages 95% included text, the backbones won't spend their money transporting it around the world. I can hear screams of censorship already, but unless Mr. Muir is willing to pay the phone bills to carry messages with large quantities of included text, I doubt the backbones will have much choice. > In any case, I shall also be installing FASCIST, so any user who insists on > including a load of junk will be disauthorised (is that the right word?). I have used FASCIST before just to make sure that people read netiquette before posting their first message. They initially may post to nothing: if they want to post, they must come to me and show that they understand what is and is not acceptable. -- James R. Van Artsdalen ...!ut-ngp!utastro!osi3b2!james "Live Free or Die"
jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry F Aguirre) (11/20/86)
In article <4283@ut-ngp.UUCP> osmigo1@ngp.UUCP (Ron Morgan) writes: >1. Maybe the 50% could go into effect ONLY if the included text exceeded 24 > lines (or one screenful). If you do put in this check then reduce the requirement from "50%" orriginal text to a few lines, don't take it out completely. The poster should be required to post SOMETHING! (Besides "REPLACE THIS...".) I have see postings in which the entire article is "included" text. Presumably some novice got confused. Remember that this kind of limit is intended to stop unintentional abuses, an experienced poster can easily defeat it in any number of ways. Jerry Aguirre
gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) (11/21/86)
In article <80@reality1.UUCP> james@reality1.UUCP (james) writes:
-> Perhaps then it is time to have rnews check for include limitations when an
-> article is received from another site. That was even if comp.lancs.ac.uk
-> posts messages 95% included text, the backbones won't spend their money
-> transporting it around the world. I can hear screams of censorship already,
-> but unless Mr. Muir is willing to pay the phone bills to carry messages with
-> large quantities of included text, I doubt the backbones will have much choice.
-> ...
->
-> I have used FASCIST before just to make sure that people read netiquette before
-> posting their first message. They initially may post to nothing: if they want
-> to post, they must come to me and show that they understand what is and is
-> not acceptable.
And after all this, in his .signature he says:
-> .... "Live Free or Die"
I just thought this was paradoxical.
--
Gordon A. Moffett {whatever}!amdahl!gam
~ See the soldier with his gun ~
~ Who must be dead to be admired ~
--
[ The opinions expressed, if any, do not represent Amdahl Corporation ]stephen@dcl-cs.UUCP (11/21/86)
In article <80@reality1.UUCP> james@reality1.UUCP (james) writes: >Perhaps then it is time to have rnews check for include limitations when an >article is received from another site. That was even if comp.lancs.ac.uk >posts messages 95% included text, the backbones won't spend their money >transporting it around the world. I can hear screams of censorship already, >but unless Mr. Muir is willing to pay the phone bills to carry messages with >large quantities of included text, I doubt the backbones will have much choice. Now look here. There is *no way* that you can stop users from doing this. They can change the included text character from ">" to anything they want. Diff listings also use ">". Sometimes, it is appropriate to have 50% more included text than new text. We only allow members of staff at this research institution to send news articles, and if they decide to have more included text than new text then it will be for a good reason. If not, I shall reprimand them and, if this doesn't work, prohibit them from posting in future. I am in agreement with the reasoning behind the 50% rule, but I do not agree with the way it is enforced. As far as I'm concerned, any net abuse should result in the poster being prohibited in future. It is my principle that the news system should not interpret the contents of news articles that I am thinking about. I shall also take the same action against any poster who posts the same article *separately* to several newsgroups, uses inappropriate newsgroups, posts non source material to net.sources etc. To summarise, the duty of preventing abuse is that of the news administrator and not by checking the contents of a news article. Computers are still not as good a judge as a human. -- EMAIL: stephen@comp.lancs.ac.uk | Post: University of Lancaster, UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!stephen | Department of Computing, Phone: +44 524 65201 Ext. 4120 | Bailrigg, Lancaster, UK. Project:Alvey ECLIPSE Distribution | LA1 4YR
len@geac.UUCP (Leonard Vanek) (11/21/86)
In article <325@viper.UUCP> dave@viper.UUCP (David Messer) writes: > > In article <764@axis.UUCP>, philip@axis.UUCP (Philip Peake) writes: > > > > Maybe NEWS 2.12 should have a modiffied version of spell included, > > so that it rejects such terrible attrocities committed against > > the english language ! [SIC] > >Need I say more? Philip was discussing the manufacturing of words like "disauthorized" when there exist perfectly acceptable words that are already in the language. Dave is apparently pouncing on Philip's typo "modiffied" and trying to use this to invalidate Philp's argument. There is a huge difference between typos (of which I have made more than I can count in typing this reply) and the laziness of making up words when you cannot be bothered thinking up a correct antonym or noun/verb/adjective form of the word you are thinking of. Len Vanek Geac Computers Markham, Ontario, Canada UUCP: utzoo!yetti!geac!len
rick@seismo.UUCP (11/23/86)
Has anyone consider that the reason for the 50% rule is to see how many sites have installed 2.11? ---rick
dww@stl.UUCP (11/25/86)
From the discussion so far, it is clear that an automatic check such as is
apparently in 2.11 (it hasn't been installed here yet) can cause stupid
problems, and can be avoided by the expert anyway. So why not accept
that the only sensible use of such things is to computer-aid not to computer-
control? By that, I mean that such a check should be used to remind the
poster that he/she has probably not made a very good job of trimmimg the
included material, and offer to re-enter edit for another try. Not just
reject out of hand.
I think most people who have included too much thoughtlessly would accept
this and re-edit, whereas those who HAVE trimmed, but can put THEIR point in
only 1-2 lines (surely to be encouraged?), can make an intelligent
decision to go ahead with the posting, without having to add dummy lines.
As can those who are actually posting diff's.
--
Regards,
David Wright STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, U.K.
dww@stl.stc.co.uk <or> ...seismo!mcvax!ukc!stl!dww <or> PSI%234237100122::DWWben@catnip.UUCP (Bennett Broder) (11/25/86)
In article <325@viper.UUCP>, David Messer writes: >Summary: It is not nice to flame other people's grammer or spelling. > ^^^^^^^<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< > > In article <764@axis.UUCP>, philip@axis.UUCP (Philip Peake) writes: ^ > > > > Maybe NEWS 2.12 should have a modiffied version of spell included, ^ > > so that it rejects such terrible attrocities committed against > > the english language ! [SIC] ^ > >Need I say more? -----------------------------------------------------^ Need I? Only on usenet. A user makes a spelling error. Another user flames him, but his flame has a spelling error. Now, a third user flames the second, and his article has a spelling error too. Duzn't anybudy no howe too spel aneemoore??? :-) -- Ben Broder {ihnp4,decvax} !hjuxa!catnip!ben {houxm,topaz}/
paul@devon.UUCP (Paul Sutcliffe Jr.) (11/26/86)
In article <42479@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV>, rick@seismo.CSS.GOV (Rick Adams) writes: > Has anyone consider that the reason for the 50% rule is to see how > many sites have installed 2.11? Since most "expreienced" posters can circumvent the 50% rule easily, this probably won't tell you much as to who has 2.11 installed. Seems to me a better way would have been to implement a control message (like senduuname), let's call it ``sendversion'', that would return the the value of the NEWS_VERSION string. Shouldn't be too hard, and would certainly be more accurate than trying to deduce the answer from the format and content of postings. -Paul -- Paul Sutcliffe, Jr. UUCP: {seismo,ihnp4,allegra,rutgers}!cbmvax!devon!paul Devon Computer Services COMPUSERVE: 76176,502 Allentown, Penna. +1 215 398 3776 "What this country needs is a good 5-cent *nickel*."
ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Ken Arromdee) (11/27/86)
>The 50% rule is there, it seems to me, to catch the careless, not the >malicious. If it's going to take as much energy to beat inews as it >would to edit the article, I think most users would opt for editing. >We have a *lot* of accounts on sphinx (over 2500), and if people were >inclined to entertain themselves by playing games with inews we'd be >seeing some evidence of it. I opted for "playing games". Although it certainly takes more energy than "editing", it only has to be done once and thus requires less energy overall. DISCLIAMER: I am NOT saying I don't edit followup postings! -- Look before you leap, but he who hesitates is lost. Kenneth Arromdee BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS ARPA: ins_akaa%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA UUCP: {allegra!hopkins, seismo!umcp-cs, ihnp4!whuxcc} !jhunix!ins_akaa
fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) (11/30/86)
The "version" control message already exists. Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu
mlandau@Diamond.BBN.COM (Matt Landau) (12/01/86)
In news.misc (article <223@shuksan.UUCP>), root@shuksan.UUCP writes: >I agree. I would like to see the 50% rule waived for less than 20 lines. >I also think there needs to be an override for the case mentioned by >Brian Reid ( diff files with the ">" in the lines ). So we can finally all stop talking about this, I'll point out that the recently posted patches to 2.11 (posted by Rick Adams about 2 weeks ago) do exactly these two things: the 50% limit is only enforced on articles more than LINECNT (default = 24) lines long, and diffs are treated specially. Followup to /dev/null, please. -- Matt Landau BBN Laboratories, Inc. mlandau@diamond.bbn.com 10 Moulton Street, Cambridge MA 02238 ...seismo!diamond.bbn.com!mlandau (617) 497-2429