Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!nsc!chuqui From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) Newsgroups: net.news Subject: cleaning up the net -- software solutions proposed Message-ID: <2982@nsc.UUCP> Date: Mon, 15-Jul-85 00:17:11 EDT Article-I.D.: nsc.2982 Posted: Mon Jul 15 00:17:11 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 17-Jul-85 05:08:16 EDT Distribution: net Organization: The Dreamer Fithp Lines: 110 [sigh -- bug killer on the loose!] My apologies to those that saw this before, but I've got reports from a section of the net that this was eaten by the wonderous news eater bug somewhere, so I have to retransmit. sigh.... --- In article <497@oliveb.UUCP> jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre) writes: >It has been suggested that the news be modified to prevent posting an >article to more than one news group if one of the groups is net.flame. > >The real question is whether this is a good idea. On the surface it >sounds good to me. I've been looking at what Jerry suggests for a couple of weeks, trying to figure out if it could be done and whether or not it is reasonable. Since it looks like net.flame is going to stick around, it is probably time to see if there are software solutions that can make life around the net a bit better. I've come up with four proposals. All of them can be implemented at any site, and if they are implemented at the backbone level will make life much easier for most of the net, so it doesn't require that any arbitrary site be upgraded so we don't get caught fighting the obsolete software at various places. Comments are welcome -- they look reasonable to me at this point and I think the advantages they give outweigh any disadvantages they might have, but I'm sure putting a few good minds together will improve them. 1) Site protection for the System Admin: Since you can't guarantee that a SA on a remote site will do anything about a rogue user, I think it is time to build a protection mechanism into Usenet so an SA can protect himself if it becomes neccessary. I propose building a routine into inew that checks the file '/usr/lib/news/hitlist'. Each line in hitlist has two fields - a header designator and a string. For example, you could add a line 'S Orphaned' and it would tell inews to reject any message with 'Orphaned' in the subject line. Other header lines that would be supported would be From, and Newsgroup, so you could (for example) cut an account, a site, or a given newsgroup (including all cross postings) from your site. This would allow the SA to add restrictions without having to patch software. By adding this protection a site is no longer at the mercy of the network. 2) Article length restrictions: With the exception of specific groups (net.sources.all, perhaps net.bugs.all and net.unix-wizards) all messages will be restricted at the inews level to 100 lines. We've been trying to figure out how to restrict over-long signatures, excessive inclusions in followups, and otherwise overly verbose messages. By simply limiting the total size of the message, people will have to be more careful about that stuff (myself included). Articles brought in from off-site can be either truncated silently or (preferred) rejected and returned to the sender so that they can re-edit it to an appropriate size. 3) Etiquette enforcements: This is the most controversial of the proposals. After a week or so of considering the implications, I think that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The big problem with net.flame seems to be the cross-postings, but there are similar problems all over the net where people disregard common etiquette. I suggest that the inews software be modified to mung headers to enforce specific cross-posting restrictions. The restrictions I think are neccessary are: If there are cross-postings made to any of the following groups, all groups but this group are removed from the header: net.flame, net.net-people, net.wanted.all If there are cross-postings made to any of the following grousp, the group listed below is removed from the header: net.sources.all, net.general, net.followup, net.misc Any cross-postings to 'net.unix,net.unix-wizards' is routed to net.unix only. Any cross-postings to a group and its subgroups are removed from the main group (example: 'net.micro,net.micro.mac' goes to net.micro.mac only) Any cross-postings to net.bugs.all and either net.unix or net.unix-wizards goes to net.bugs.all only. The idea is to restrict the cross postings that don't make any sense. If it is going to be implemented, we ought to agree what restrictions ought to be made. This is only my initial suggestion, so have at it. 4) Followup fan-in: A growing problem is followup fan-out, where a discussion tends to fan out through a number of groups as it goes along. 2.10.3 postnews should include a provision that will add a 'followup-to' header to postings to cause followups to go only the group that is first in the 'newsgroups' line. This will cause a discussion to concentrate in a primary newsgroup instead of wandering around irritating everyone. I suggest we include an enforcement mechanism in inews to do the same: Any message that comes in with either an 'Re:' in the header or a non-null 'References' line is routed only to the first message in the group. All of these ideas are independent. I'm going to implement the protection mechanism for my own site anyway, and will make it available when I'm done. The other three I'm not sure about, but number 4 looks like the most likely, followed by #3. I won't implement the line-length restriction unless it will be adopted by the standard news software, since that would generate a lot of hassle for the net. The other three would effect only myself and my downstream sites in any visible way. None of these look like a real problem to implement, and I'll be happy to put them together in my copious free time (or help out someone else that wants to do it...). Comments are very welcome, of course. -- :From the ex-USENET fascist: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA Your fifteen minutes are up. Please step aside!