Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site cbosgd.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: New newgroup suggestion--Re: Permanent Postings
Message-ID: <599@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 22-Dec-84 20:31:58 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.599
Posted: Sat Dec 22 20:31:58 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Dec-84 01:52:28 EST
References: <33@angband.UUCP> <729@watdcsu.UUCP> 
Organization: Bell Labs, Columbus
Lines: 20

It's an interesting idea, but in effect, posting an article with an
expiration date 5 years in the future has the same result using
today's software.

The following two problems are not dealt with by the current scheme,
and probably not with any reasonably simple scheme for permanent postings:

(1) People who use "find . -mtime +14" to remove old news.  If expire
didn't have any bugs I would never do this, but in practice I seem to
have to do it every once in a while.

(2) New sites that were not on Usenet when the articles were posted.

Statements of charter for a newsgroup, commonly asked questions, and
rules usually need to be updated regularly anyway.  It's not hard to
set a medium term expiration date and repost an updated version at a
regular interval.  Of course, we have to be sure that these regular
postings don't significantly increase the amount of traffic on the net.

	Mark Horton