[net.news] Stanford now gatewaying fa.*?

phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (10/22/85)

Now that UCB has converted its gatewaying of the fa.* groups to mod.*
groups, I see that Stanford is gatewaying fa.*. This means I get all
the ARPA mailing lists twice. I don't think I like this.

Would it be asking too much to have only one gateway? I thought most
of the people involved in the USENET backbone had agreed the mod.*
idea was acceptable. Stanford disagreed and was going to keep getting
the lists in the fa.* form. But now they are leaking out into the rest
of USENET, which is undesirable.

Can we come to a consensus on this matter? Or are Stanford and
Berkeley going to fight it out regardless of the impact on the rest of
the USENET community?
-- 
The California Lottery is a tax on the stupid.

 Phil Ngai +1 408 749-5720
 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil
 ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.dec.com

reid@Glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) (10/22/85)

>Can we come to a consensus on this matter? Or are Stanford and
>Berkeley going to fight it out regardless of the impact on the rest of
>the USENET community?

Sorry, this was a 1-keystroke typo on my part when I went to edit our sys
files so that the new mod groups don't get passed through. I hadn't noticed
it, but upon reading your message I found and fixed the "fa" leak.
We have been gatewaying the "fa" stuff for a couple of years, and have
always in the past managed to contain it; the complexity arose because
Berkeley is not gatewaying fa.risks, and we are, and I had to make sure that
fa.risks got out and the others didn't, and I blew it.  Sorry.
(Please let me know soon if this fix doesn't work)
-- 
	Brian Reid	decwrl!glacier!reid
	Stanford	reid@SU-Glacier.ARPA

tp@ndm20 (11/01/85)

I'd rather see the fa.* groups until Erik Fair fixes the names.  As I
said in an article on net.news.groups,  I get  all mod.computers.* in
one group and all mod.protocols.* in another.   This will  be true of
all  non-4.2  sites  running notes  (correct me  if I'm  wrong).  The
problem  is that  the entire  name of  the group  is the  name of one
directory to hold that notesfile,  and on  many systems  that name is
limited to 14 characters.  Notes does not  use the  one directory per
name component scheme the way news does.  So I have mod.computers.vax
(since  it  got  here  first),  which  contains  mod.computers.*  and
mod.protocols.tcp-ip  which   contains  mod.protocols.*   I  have  no
indication other than content which group a given message belongs to.

I don't care if  the name  is longer  than 14  characters, but PLEASE
make it UNIQUE in the first 14 characters.  This shouldn't  be at all
difficult.  I support the idea  of the  mod.* groups  instead of fa.*
(even though I can't make use of it myself, not having had the chance
to install Rich Salz' notes mod to  properly handle  posting to mod.*
groups).

Any flames about my choice of news interface/version of unix would be
most inappropriate.  The point  is that  people use  these systems (a
LOT  of people,  see mod.newslists,  and many  have no  choice in the
matter) and they should be supported.  I  don't think  Erik is trying
to screw all SysV/SysIII/V7 users just because he  works for Berkely,
and I can see how the combination of notes/non-4.2 would not occur to
someone running news/4.2, but PLEASE correct the situation as soon as
possible.  (Luckily I have no  down stream  sites, so  the problem is
confined  to  my  site.   But we  have been  toying with  the idea of
getting a redundant feed to increase  news reliability  in this area.
If that  occurs, then  all this  stuff will  get cross  posted on the
whole net the way it occurs on my site.  I'll bet it  gets fixed fast
when  mod.protocols.kermit  starts  echoing  a  week  or  so later in
mod.protocols.tcp-ip.  That is where my system gets the articles.)  

Thanks,
Terry Poot
Nathan D. Maier Consulting Engineers
(214)739-4741
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