[net.news] Proliferation of news groups

rusty@sri-unix (12/06/82)

From: rusty (Rusty Wright)
you forgot another alternative: let these people create these
short term newsgroups that will die out after a while and have
the netnews software automatically remove the spool directory,
. files, remove it from the active file, remove the entry for
it from the .newsrc files, and fix/remove any other files for
that newsgroup, after that newsgroup hasn't had a submission
for a "long time".

stevenm (12/07/82)

I have recieved about 22 (love that number!) replies to my complaint
about the proliferation of special-purpose newsgroups. I am going to
wait until the weekend for more replies, then post the results to the
net (on net.news).

S. McGeady

smb (12/07/82)

Let me make a suggestion to anyone who wishes to propose a new newsgroup:
you should state clearly and explicitly what you expect to be discussed
in it.  If you have only one or two discussions in mind, don't bother -- it
will die out fairly soon, and just clutter up /usr/spool/news.  One example
of a group that should never have been created is net.wobegon (to which I've
contributed, incidentally); there simply isn't enough material to *sustain*
usage.


			--Steve Bellovin
			unc!smb (but not for much longer)

bstempleton (12/13/82)

The answer is not to delete groups but to change the news software to
allow an unlimited number of groups to exist easily.

Looks like Plato did it from the stats we were given.
I think it can be done with a keyword based system.