[net.news] why the rmgroup net.periph?

furuta (01/15/83)

Would the person who sent out the rmgroup message for net.periph please
explain to me why it was necessary to delete this group?

I've decided to set the MANUALLY flag.  I also think that this is an
extremely negative thing to do since it means that it will be just that much
harder to keep the net clean (if I don't allow remote rmgroup messages, news
readers on the systems I administrate can inadvertently post messages to
groups created by typos, etc.).  However, I think that the rmgroup wars have
become just a bit to anarchist for me to handle.  It's my feeling that an
increasing number of sites are disabling remote rmgroups.  I also have the
feeling that an increasing number of sites are routing the rmgroup control
messages to /dev/null because of their number.

What I'm trying to say is that it seems to me that rmgroup is becoming
unworkable for the size of the net.  I'd suggest that we think about
possible alternatives (yes, I realize that suggesting a change to netnews
software is almost impossible to actually carry out).

In the mean time, I'd suggest that those of you who feel compelled to
rmgroup net groups post explanations so that the rest of us aren't just left
fuming.  Perhaps a new group, net.news.rmgroup, would be in order.

			--Rick

sjb (01/16/83)

Not coming from here, I can only speculate why net.periph was
rm'ed (if I recall, it was done by mj1!usenet -- care to speak
for yourself?)  net.periph is not a group, it's that simple.
net.periphs (note the s on the end) is the peripheral device
newsgroup.

A note to all you rmgroup weary admin's:  I have been persuaded
(politely, not by any flaming) to stop rmgroup'ing illegitimate
newsgroups until 2.10 comes out, when the problem of them will
be solved automatically (they will just not be created without
the proper control messages in the first place)