lenoil@mit-eddie.UUCP (Robert Scott Lenoil) (05/02/84)
Why can't people post to bell.all? That's like saying that
MIT has its own internal mail service, therefore no one may
send mail to MIT. If someone at AT&T, or any other site, has
something that is of interest to the entire bell commuity, I
don't see what is wrong with addressing a message to them.
After all, that is what newsgroups are for.
Robert Lenoil
{genrad,ihnp4}!mit-eddie!lenoil - USENET
LENOIL@MIT-XX - ARPANETsdo@u1100a.UUCP (Scott Orshan) (05/03/84)
> Why can't people post to bell.all? That's like saying that > MIT has its own internal mail service, therefore no one may > send mail to MIT. If someone at AT&T, or any other site, has > something that is of interest to the entire bell commuity, I > don't see what is wrong with addressing a message to them. Since I was the one who asked Mark to post the net.announce article about bell newsgroups, I'll respond to this. > After all, that is what newsgroups are for. That may be what newsgroups are for, but "bell.all" is the notation of a distribution for restricting where news goes. There are many such local distributions throughout the net. You only see them when they are tacked onto a newsgroup that you get. The main reasons for restricted distributions are to post articles of interest only to one area (like autos for sale in New Jersey), and to discuss proprietary information within an organization. It was never intended that people outside a distribution post to that dist. For one thing, if you're not part of that dist., the article will never leave your machine. It is a weakness of the software that allows a local dist. to be carried along with a global dist. That is why you see newsgroup lists such as: net.wanted,chi.wanted but not nj.wanted. The MIT mail situation is not a valid comparison. You can certainly send electronic mail to an MIT gateway and have an MIT network send it to its destination. What we're talking about here is not mail. If AT&T wants to tell something to the bell community (which is no longer associated with AT&T, but nobody seems to get the point), they have to tell it to everybody. If you want to address an article to an outside distribution, you have to address it to a distribution which contains you and them, such as usa, or just plain net. This is really not a subject that can be argued. These are long established USENET facts. What you can do is propose a new routing scheme, and a reworking of the software to allow what you want. But, please don't come on the net and say "I wanna." Scott Orshan Bell Communications Research 201-981-3064 {ihnp4,pyuxww,allegra}!u1100a!sdo
rpw3@fortune.UUCP (05/04/84)
#R:mit-eddi:-172100:fortune:3500020:000:862
fortune!rpw3 May 3 17:33:00 1984
"Why can't people post to bell.all?"
Two main reasons I can see:
1. Because "posting" implies that all of the intervening
network administrators between you and some bell.* site
must agree to carry the load IN BOTH DIRECTIONS (for it
to work). Many sites can barely hack their current news
traffic load.
But much more importantly,
2. I suspect "bell.all" is used much the same way we use "fs.all"
here. As a LOCAL (to a known list of controlled sites) way to
post articles which may be proprietary to the company or group,
including pricing data, design problems, "bitching" sessions, etc.
There may even be legal restrictions on outsiders seeing such info.
Rob Warnock
UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!amd70,hpda,harpo,sri-unix,allegra}!fortune!rpw3
DDD: (415)595-8444
USPS: Fortune Systems Corp, 101 Twin Dolphin Drive, Redwood City, CA 94065bbanerje@sjuvax.UUCP (B. Banerjee) (05/07/84)
This is a followup to Scott Orshan's followup... which I agree with 99%. However, there is a situation where posting to a distribution that you are not part of, may be warranted. This is the situation where you wish to, say, rent an apartment in Chicago (Example! I don't!) As you cannot post to chi.wanted, you post to net.wanted with the effect that people who haven't the slightest interest in your query, get to see the posting. Scott writes.... >> It was never intended that people outside a distribution post >> to that dist. For one thing, if you're not part of that >> dist., the article will never leave your machine. It is To get around this, you may wish to mail to someone in Chicago, and have them place the message in the appropriate group. But what if you don't know anyone in Chicago? Another case in point is the pa.all distribution that I am part of. I have yet to see anything appear in this. We are far closer to New Jersey than to (say) Pittsburgh. As I have no intention of saying "...I wanna"; I'd like to propose a possible solution. How about setting up a mail alias of "wanted" on every system, such that mailing to "wanted" will post the article to the smallest possible distribution that the site is a part of. Thus, to post something to chi.wanted, I could just find a site in Chicago (via the usenet maps) and mail my letter to .....!<chicago-site>!wanted . In fact, I will set up something like that over here for anyone who wishes to post to pa.wanted. (Just give me a week or so till exams are over). I think that this would solve the problem adequately. I would appreciate feedback on this. Regards, -- Binayak Banerjee {allegra | astrovax | bpa | burdvax}!sjuvax!bbanerje
seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert) (05/09/84)
> To get around this, you may wish to mail to someone in Chicago, and > have them place the message in the appropriate group. But what if you > don't know anyone in Chicago? Another case in point is the pa.all > distribution that I am part of. I have yet to see anything appear in > this. We are far closer to New Jersey than to (say) Pittsburgh. > > As I have no intention of saying "...I wanna"; I'd like to propose > a possible solution. How about setting up a mail alias of > "wanted" on every system, such that mailing to "wanted" will post the > article to the smallest possible distribution that the site is a part > of. Thus, to post something to chi.wanted, I could just find a site > in Chicago (via the usenet maps) and mail my letter to > .....!<chicago-site>!wanted . > > In fact, I will set up something like that over here for anyone who > wishes to post to pa.wanted. (Just give me a week or so till exams > are over). I think that this would solve the problem adequately. > I would appreciate feedback on this. > > Binayak Banerjee > {allegra | astrovax | bpa | burdvax}!sjuvax!bbanerje Good point, in fact I once posted an article in a local project-related group for someone who was working on the project, but located in NJ. There *is* a small problem with defining the "smallest possible distribution". If you were to send something to, say ihnp4!wanted, do you want it posted to "chi.wanted", or the smaller "ih.wanted" (ih = Indian Hill, goes only to AT&T machines in Chicago area) If you're going to visit the area and want, say, restaurant recommendations, you'll want chi.wanted. If you have some question about an AT&T product att.wanted or ih.wanted might be appropriate. (Identifing yourself and your organization, of course!) I'm sure other companies have similar company.wanted groups as well. The software could add a warning when posting the article that it came in through the "wanted login", so that someone wouldn't give out proprietary info by mistake. Currently this isn't necessary since only someone within the company can post to the company.all newsgroups. Perhaps there could be two or three "logins": a.wanted - local area (e.g. chi.wanted) c.wanted - company/college (e.g. att.wanted) ca.wanted - company/local area ( e.g. ih.wanted) The ca.wanted option would probably be used mostly within large companies, since outsiders probably wouldn't know which area to direct their questions to. The ideas I have expressed above are solely my own, don't assume that the rest of AT&T agrees. (For one thing, they won't even know about it until I hit "^z y" and actually post this!) -- _____ /_____\ That auto-crossing beagle, /_______\ Snoopy |___| BMWCCA, Windy City Chapter ____|___|_____ ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert