Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsrgv.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!dave
From: dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Signatures to names and automatic path finding
Message-ID: <1872@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Aug-83 11:31:59 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.1872
Posted: Tue Aug  2 11:31:59 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 2-Aug-83 14:20:41 EDT
Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto
Lines: 33

Well, I sure have learnt something since posting my "gripe about the
way people sign articles". Seems like a LOT of people out there don't
have any kind of a path finder. So my *real* gripe is, why not?
	I'm not blaming any individual for not having it, now. But
surely, in this day and age and with the size of the net at what it
is, it's time for us to think about mechanisms for ensuring that
mail can find its way around the net without human beings havings to
sit down with a map or list and figure out paths by hand. I've discussed
this by private mail with a couple of people, and it seems to me that
ideally there should be a backbone site somewhere which can maintain
the "official" list of connections; perhaps mail which fails for lack
of a path could automatically trigger a request of that system to supply
the correct path name (and requests in net.wanted with "path wanted" in
their header would automatically be answered:-). A news reader who
wanted to know a path could request that information by mailing to
backbone!pathfinder (assuming he knew the path to backbone), and
would get an automatic reply by return mail.   Note that I said "ideally";
I've got a feeling that's not going to happen soon.
	What SHOULD happen is that some path finding program should be
distributed as part of uucp, news, or whatever, and the various people
around the net who maintain databases of connections on their own
machines should co-ordinate efforts. I'm sure net.sources could tolerate
a (say) semi-monthly posting of the "official" connections list, in a format
usable by whatever pathfinder people want (I use nmail). Furthermore, using
the 'r' key in readnews should pass only the final site name and user name
(e.g., "utcsrgv!dave") to the mailer, and the mailer should be a pathfinding
mailer by default. (I *never* use the 'r' key now - it's always "!mailto
site!user" [mailto is our local name for nmail].)
	In the meantime, I've given up and gotten myself a .signature. Sigh.

Dave Sherman, Toronto
-- 
 {linus,cornell,watmath,ihnp4,floyd,allegra,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!dave