preece@ccvaxa.UUCP (07/16/85)
I don't like the hitlist idea and I don't like length restrictions, but I think the other two suggestions are very sensible indeed. They allow users to specifically go around the protective mechanism when they think it's important to do so (for instance, by posting an item twice, in different groups, instead of just cross posting, but they take care of the accidental transgressor. I don't mind the hitlist if it only controls the DISPLAY of items, but I still think the flow THROUGH a site should be untrammeled. Length limits are a definite lose. Some things take a lot of words to say. I've seen a lot of well thought out, cogent presentations that went on for many pages (as well as many irrational, silly, or otherwise vacuous over-long notes). If someone wants to spend the time it takes to type in a tousand lines of text, that should be the cost of admission. On the other hand, I would love to see some way of inhibiting extensive quotation. I don't see any such at the moment, except for immediate, massive flaming at those who quote excessively. -- scott preece gould/csd - urbana ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece
wombat@ccvaxa.UUCP (07/18/85)
Remember, though, that when notes first came out it had a restriction on article length and everyone complained about truncated articles, so much so that in more recent versions of notes the max length is site-configurable. It would be best to make sure everyone is using the same max length, and keep in mind that there will always be long (and/or many) notes to net.sources. "When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all." Roger Zelazny, *Doorways in the Sand* Wombat ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!wombat
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) (07/19/85)
In article <1300007@ccvaxa> preece@ccvaxa.UUCP writes: >I don't mind the hitlist if it only controls the DISPLAY of items, >but I still think the flow THROUGH a site should be untrammeled. This does not solve the potential legal liability of a site for carrying the news around, and there is no way to use the 'F' flag of the sys file and not store the offending articles on your database, breaking many of the batching schemes in use on the net. >Length limits are a definite lose. Based on my mail, I'll be happy to agree. The advantages seem to be questionable, and the implementation looks to be REAL quirky, especially if you want to mail the offending stuff back instead of silently truncating (which I don't want to do...) -- :From the ex-USENET fascist: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA Your fifteen minutes are up. Please step aside!
wombat@ccvaxa.UUCP (07/21/85)
In response to isis!burt, who asked about modifying news to take advantage of References: lines so people wouldn't feel inclined to include half the previous posting, I will once again leap onto my 'notes' soapbox. The University of Illinois' notesfile software (see your 4.2BSD user- contributed software tape or write to ihnp4!uiucdcs!essick) presents related notes (articles) together. If you're reading a note and want to refer to a previous note from the same discussion, a backspace or two will take you to it (or a couple more keystrokes if it's been a long discussion). If the string of notes gets broken (by people using post instead of followup?) you can also locate notes in the notesfile (newsgroup) by searching for a specific author or a specific string in the title (Subject: line). (Steve Dyer be warned: BBN recently hired a notes fan who may try to convert you all.) "When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all." Roger Zelazny, *Doorways in the Sand* Wombat ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!wombat
chris@gargoyle.UUCP (Chris Johnston) (07/21/85)
Does any one have software that will allow an SA (me) to see the articles posted from his sites? Chris Johnston I trust most of my users, but I find fascism gets their attention.
kre@ucbvax.ARPA (Robert Elz) (07/23/85)
In article <521@gargoyle.UUCP>, chris@gargoyle.UUCP (Chris Johnston) writes: > > Does any one have software that will allow an SA (me) to see the > articles posted from his sites? > Just add the following line to your sys file (assuming that you are running some reasonably recent version of news) KGB:all:L:/bin/mail chris Robert Elz ucbvax!kre
guy@sun.uucp (Guy Harris) (07/24/85)
> In response to isis!burt, who asked about modifying news to take advantage > of References: lines so people wouldn't feel inclined to include half the > previous posting, I will once again leap onto my 'notes' soapbox. > > The University of Illinois' notesfile software (see your 4.2BSD user- > contributed software tape or write to ihnp4!uiucdcs!essick) presents related > notes (articles) together. If you're reading a note and want to refer to a > previous note from the same discussion, a backspace or two will take you to > it (or a couple more keystrokes if it's been a long discussion). If the > string of notes gets broken (by people using post instead of followup?) you > can also locate notes in the notesfile (newsgroup) by searching for a > specific author or a specific string in the title (Subject: line). However, if your site gets a note *without* the note that started the discussion off, some versions of "notes" proceed to do something that not only screws the site running "notes" but everybody who has to read that site's followups... It decides that Something Evil Happened and that the note that arrived is a (drumroll please...) - Orphaned Response. The "Re: <original subject>" header gets lost somehow, along with the <original subject>. All responses from the notes site then propagate into the outside world bearing the Subject: line "Re: Orphaned Response". The only information conveyed by this title is that 1) a "notes" site got into the act somewhere and 2) that site didn't get the "base note" of the discussion before it got a later note. I believe there is a later version of "notes" that actually handles Orphaned Responses in a sane fashion. I believe it also supports B news format for article exchange with non-"notes" systems, rather than A news format, so you don't lose information like "References:". (I don't know what "notes" does with "References:" lines, though - it'd be nice if it realized that the article should be in the same discussion as the first, if not all, the referenced articles. It'd be nicer if it saved the individual subject lines for all those articles, since you *can* have more than one "Subject:" in a discussion when using B news...) In short, be nice to your USENET neighbors - *DON'T* run "notes" if you intend to talk with non-"notes" sites, unless you *KNOW* that the version of "notes" you're going to run can handle Orphaned Responses. (Oh yes, and when you *do* set up "notes", *please* make sure your articles don't leave home with a "Path" line like Path: ...!uiucdcs!uicsl!seefromline That "Path:" is often the only mail path available, and unless "seefromline" is your account on the machine in question, it doesn't do anybody much good.) Guy Harris