bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) (08/27/89)
In article <14580@bfmny0.UUCP> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes:
: Well, ANOTHER lesson for new users is that when you realize after posting
: something that you shouldn't have posted it, you can CANCEL your posting
: rather than creating a big second posting apologizing for the first one.
: In "rn" the "C" key does the trick - with other newsreaders check the
: documentation.
Much to my great dismay, it seems that many installations are set up
so that cancellations do not work. Why, I don't know. I do know that
my standard installation of rn does *not* allow me to cancel articles.
Maybe I screwed something up or maybe there is something incompatible
in the various pieces of software I use.
(Why haven't I fixed the problem? Well, mine's a one person machine;
in the rare case I want to cancel something, I either edit the file
in place or just delete it.)
Whatever, I've often found that when someone posts a followup to an
article instead of a cancel, they tried to cancel the article but
weren't able to. Or they just didn't know about cancelling an article.
I suggest that one should send a polite note telling the "offender"
of the ability to cancel messages; if they are the victim of
improperly installed software, it will do no harm, and if they didn't
know about cancelling an article they will likely be grateful to
learn.
Note also that, since cancelling an article does not guarantee that
no one has read the article, a _short_ posting apologizing for a
*very* egregious posting might not be out of line.
---
Bill { uunet | novavax | ankh | sunvice } !twwells!bill
bill@twwells.comtneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) (08/28/89)
If cancelling B news articles appears not to work, although the cancelled articles are deleted locally, the most common problem is that you're not sending the "control" group to your newsfeed. I believe the standard sys file as distributed has this problem. -- "We walked on the moon -- (( Tom Neff you be polite" )) tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET
esker@abaa.uucp (Lawrence Esker) (08/29/89)
>In article <14580@bfmny0.UUCP> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes: >: Well, ANOTHER lesson for new users is that when you realize after posting >: something that you shouldn't have posted it, you can CANCEL your posting >: rather than creating a big second posting apologizing for the first one. >: In "rn" the "C" key does the trick - with other newsreaders check the >: documentation. Good point, something that should have been brought up in this group before. In article <1989Aug26.213711.16326@twwells.com> bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) writes: >Whatever, I've often found that when someone posts a followup to an >article instead of a cancel, they tried to cancel the article but >weren't able to. Or they just didn't know about cancelling an article. Well, as the guy who originated the message that started this thread, I need to say that I did not cancel the previous article intentionally (even though I did know how). This for several reasons: 1) The first article contained points I wanted to keep and not repeat in the second article. 2) It allowed me to keep the "Another lesson for new users..." vain that Bill Wisner used to try and teach me his way of life. Tom Neff did a good job at continuing that vain in his article. 3) I was pissed at seeing yet more flames after I wrote the first post and wanted to let fires roar. Unfortuanately, 3 is the worst reason to post, but probably the most likely. BTW. My reading of this group has turned into searching for my name to see who and how many flame me next, and to what extent. I guess we need an alt.SanM group. Time to hit the "u" key after I post this article. Follow- ups are directed to alt.flame since I won't be around to read them anymore. For my first flame-war, I can't say its been fun. >Bill { uunet | novavax | ankh | sunvice } !twwells!bill >bill@twwells.com Thanks Bill Wells again. I hope your asbestos suit is in top shape. You've provided some of the only Signal I've found in all this Noise! Of coarse this means some flamer is probably waiting for you. When my SysAd finally gets our rn to work and I can do kill files by peoples names to work, I will probably be back. Will eliminate 50 % of the noise.
steve@nuchat.UUCP (Steve Nuchia) (08/29/89)
[crossposted to news.software.b because this discussion from news.newusers.questions has pointed out a common fault we might want to try to fix and reminded me of an idea.] In article <1989Aug26.213711.16326@twwells.com> bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells) writes: >Much to my great dismay, it seems that many installations are set up >so that cancellations do not work. Why, I don't know. I do know that >my standard installation of rn does *not* allow me to cancel articles. >Maybe I screwed something up or maybe there is something incompatible >in the various pieces of software I use. This seems to be pretty common. Someone posted and explanation of what combination of configuation options leads to it, but it isn't obvious to the average news installer. We either need to patch the software so it works better, or see below... >Note also that, since cancelling an article does not guarantee that >no one has read the article, a _short_ posting apologizing for a >*very* egregious posting might not be out of line. Since the "supercedes" header has been developed, why not use it for this sort of thing? Provide a user interface with a name like "retract" that sends out a message containing your short statement superceding the offending message. The authentication still has to be done right, of course. Followups to news.software.b -- Steve Nuchia South Coast Computing Services uunet!nuchat!steve POB 890952 Houston, Texas 77289 (713) 964 2462 Consultation & Systems, Support for PD Software.