dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) (09/30/89)
In article <6348@pt.cs.cmu.edu> spok@gs6.sp.cs.cmu.edu (John Ockerbloom) writes:
#A few days ago, a blank article with this signature appeared ...
From time to time either blank postings or (worse) followups containing the
whole original article but no further comment appear on the net. I wondered
how people could be so dumb, till I did it myself :-) (fortunately I noticed
and cancelled it).
The problem lies in vi: if you save to a file, then exit without further
change, vi won't alter the original file, EVEN IF YOU SAVED TO A DIFFERENT
FILE. So if you make yourself a 'security copy' just before you exit
and post your article, you won't post what you thought you'd posted :-)
Whether this is the cause of the case cited I don't know, but it is
certainly a "gotya" to watch out for. And maybe warn about somewhere
where new users might just see it?
--
Regards, "Just 'cos you CAN send messages everywhere, doesn't mean you HAVE to"
David Wright STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, UK
dww@stl.stc.co.uk <or> ...uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!dww <or> PSI%234237100122::DWW