jmsellens@watrose.UUCP (John M Sellens) (06/22/84)
A couple of months ago I wanted to cancel an article that I had submitted. I `knew' that it was possible, but it took me a long time to find it. For example, there is - postnews - checknews - inews (what does this name stand for???) - readnews but no "cancelnews". I finally noticed that it was a readnews sub-command, but it was somewhat primitive (?). The reason I ask, is that so many novice news-ers submit these articles saying "please excuse the last one" or "correction to previous", etc. It seems to me that if the way to cancel an article was more obvious, that we'd have fewer of these useless articles to look at. Maybe just a man page (like cancelnews(5)??) telling you how to do it. (I know that it's in readnews(1) but it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb the way that it should.) Yes, I know that the action of cancelling an article generates a new (small) article, but perhaps most cancelling would be done before the article goes out over the phone. Maybe postnews (and readnews's 'f' command) should show you what you're about to post and give you one last chance to change your mind (e.g. "are you SURE that you want everyone else to read your mistakes (y/n)?"). Yes, I know that this goes against the "UNIX philosophy" (but that's another problem). Comments?? John M Sellens UUCP: watmath!watrose!jmsellens CSNET: jmsellens%watrose@waterloo.csnet ARPA: jmsellens%watrose%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa