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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!allyn
From: allyn@sdcsvax.UUCP (Allyn Fratkin)
Newsgroups: net.followup
Subject: Re: What to do about all these "quotes" of articles
Message-ID: <548@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 24-Dec-84 12:12:27 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.548
Posted: Mon Dec 24 12:12:27 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Dec-84 02:39:16 EST
References: <1308@eosp1.UUCP> <396@down.FUN>
Organization: U.C. San Diego
Lines: 30

In article <396@down.FUN>, north@down.FUN (Stephen C North) writes:
> 
> What do people think the References and Xref headers are for, anyway?
> Netnews is a database.  Including someone else's article as if I have
> no possible way of finding it or seeing it again is silly, almost as
> silly as all those """""line eater bug""""" and .signature lines.

That's fine for notes because notes does group your articles according to
subject and reply.  But, how many of us use notes?  News reading programs
that I have seen do not allow you to easily look at a previous article given
only the Message-ID.  It might be nice to be able to do that, but right now, 
it just isn't possible for most of us.

Besides, you still don't address the problem of what to do if the reply
arrives before the "base note" (to use notes terms).  In notes, you get 
an "Orphaned response".  What do you propose should happen?

I think a help for the problem would be to fix postnews to
check to make sure the file contents changed before it posts an article.
It is bad enough to have to wade through pages of a quoted article,
but it is infuriating to wade through the quote to be left with
only "*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***".  It seems to be very
common these days.

-- 
 From the virtual mind of Allyn Fratkin           sdcsvax!allyn@Nosc
                          UCSD Pascal Project     {ucbvax, decvax, ihnp4}
                          U.C. San Diego                    !sdcsvax!allyn

"Generally you don't see that kind of behavior in a major appliance."