CSvax:Pucc-H:acg@pur-ee.UUCP (08/27/83)
I don't want to re-open the discussion on the relative merits of the news statistics, put I have a related point that I feel needs to be resolved. The latest statistics listing shows the greatest number of articles coming from a site "pur-ee.UUCP (PUCC)". I hate to be the one to mention this, but the site description is an impossibility. The "pur-ee" machine is run by the Purdue University Engineering Computer Network while PUCC is an acronym for the Purdue University Computing Center. Although both organizations are part of a greater whole, they still have two completely different managements. This is akin to grouping all of the Bell sites in one line item, which would surely make the rest of the net look puny in comparison. I hope whoever is dumping these statistics on the net will take this to heart and be a little more careful with the arbitrary grouping of machines into "mega-sites". - Jeff Schwab <...!pur-ee!pucc-h:acg> Purdue University Computing Center
ra@rlgvax.UUCP (Rick Adams) (08/28/83)
Since I spent 7 years at Purdue and installed the version of news that is still running on the Purdue ECN machines, I am well aware of the various political interactions and the fact that the Engineering Computer Network and the Computer Center are "different" organizations (competing would be a better description.) HOWEVER, if the sites in question insist on generating ERRONEOUS headers, I refuse to "fix" my software with special cases to correct their mistakes. Consider the headers of the article to which I am following up: Relay-Version: version B 2.10.1a 7/7/83; site rlgvax.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site pucc-h Path: rlgvax!seismo!harpo!eagle!mhuxt!mhuxi!mhuxa!houxm!ihnp4!ixn5c!inuxc!pur-ee!CSvax:Pucc-H:acg From: CSvax:Pucc-H:acg@pur-ee.UUCP Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Statistics are only useful if... Message-ID: <247@pucc-h> Date: Fri, 26-Aug-83 17:44:18 EDT Date-Received: Sat, 27-Aug-83 05:20:33 EDT Organization: Purdue University Computing Center Lines: 21 Gee, we seem to have a valid From: line and a valid "Organization:" line, of course they shouldn't be associated with each other, right? Every program in the world should know that that is not correct. Excuse my ignorance. The simple fact is, you can not feed 2.10 or later headers into the hacked up 2.9 (I can call it hacked, since I did it) that pur-ee is running without getting trash out. So fix your problem (I won't hold my breath) and stop trying to blame other people for your local problems. Oh yes, before you comment about checking that the Message-ID: site matches the From: site, there are several legitimate examples where they do not match (From: lsuc and Message-ID: utcsrgv is the first to come to mind). Rick Adams Director, Center for Useless Statistics.
CSvax:Pucc-H:acg@pur-ee.UUCP (09/01/83)
Rick - I thought my request was a reasonable one and did not in the wildest blue expect the rather vitrolic reply you sent. Somehow, I hadn't considered that it would be my fault that some site between mine and yours alters the headers. You are in effect suggesting that I force every site between us to upgrade their news programs whether they have the resources or not. Well, I hate to mention this to you friend, but no one person controls this net. Not even you. If the people between us want to run old versions of news, nobody is going to stop them. MOST IMPORTANTLY, there are no doubt other sites between you and other innocent users that also run older versions of news. Without a doubt, we are not the only site that you have libeled. Now, I don't know what background you have, but my introductory programming teacher always told us that if the program gets inconsistent results on known data, it's not the data you change. To reiterate the subject of my initial posting, statistics are only useful if they are believable. At this point, yours are not. If you intend to continue posting them, I would strongly urge you to upgrade your programs to handle the net software as it is, not as you would like it to be. - Jeff Schwab Purdue University Computing Center <pur-ee!pucc-h:acg>