[net.news] Been Mentioned? feature

srt@ucla-cs.UUCP (08/13/85)

How about adding a feature to 'rn' that will do some checking to see if
the current article has been replied to.  Two ways to do this come to
mind:

(a) Simply check forward through the newsgroup looking for an article
    that references the current one.

(b) Check forward through the newsgroup for an article that references the
    current one _and_ includes a user-supplied string.

The idea is to prevent hundreds of answers to simple queries (a major
problem as we all know).

//Is he going to pop into his DeLorean again?//

                                                -- Scott

lwall@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Larry Wall) (08/15/85)

In article <6562@ucla-cs.ARPA> srt@ucla-cs.UUCP writes:
>How about adding a feature to 'rn' that will do some checking to see if
>the current article has been replied to.  Two ways to do this come to
>mind:
>...
>The idea is to prevent hundreds of answers to simple queries (a major
>problem as we all know).
>
>//Is he going to pop into his DeLorean again?//

[Oh, oh.  I can't seem to get the silly thing started...]

This idea has some merit.  It would have more merit if news were transmitted
instantaneously.  Unfortunately, most duplicate followups occur because
of transmission latency, not because people don't read everything that's
come in.

However, there are a couple of ways to handle the problem, such as it is.
First, you can do what I do--use the 'M' command to mark the article
temporarily read, then read the rest of the newsgroup, and then either
use the 'Y' command to yank back the article, or exit the newsgroup and
return, which automatically yanks it back.  Or, if you are in subject search
mode, and the next article is a different subject, use '-' to get back
to the last article of the subject you're interested in.  The 'M' approach
has the advantage of giving a "cooling-off" period.  Often, by the time
the article comes around again, I've decided I don't really want to jump
into the fray.

Alternately, we could probably define a macro, bound to 'f' or 'F', that
would list all the unread articles with the same subject, ask for
confirmation, and then do the real f or F.  The actual macro is left as
an exercise for the reader.

I prefer to drag my feet on adding more C code, though, when an issue can
be resolved by education.  And in the case of transmission latency, education
is the only near-term solution.  There's no software that will suppress
duplicate "NEWS FLASH: OLD COKE IS BACK!" articles.

Larry Wall
{allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdcsvax}!sdcrdcf!lwall