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!