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From: jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (Joel West)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: cleaning up the net -- software solutions proposed
Message-ID: <982@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 14-Jul-85 13:18:58 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.982
Posted: Sun Jul 14 13:18:58 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 18-Jul-85 06:34:22 EDT
References: <2961@nsc.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: CACI, Inc - Federal, La Jolla
Lines: 88

> 1) Site protection for the System Admin:
>     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. 
As proposed, I don't think this is very practical.  Hitting individuals 
smacks as censorship (and, on a site-by-site basis, will be spotty at 
best) and besides:
	1) Won't take effect until the damage is done
	2) Can easily be circumvented by a smart guy changing userid's.
I won't debate the philosophy behind it, but I don't think there's any
point in adding a capability to the already cumbersome netnews software
that will never (or rarely) be used.  There are enough other important
changes needed (like #3 on Chuq's list)

> 2) Article length restrictions:
>     With the exception of specific groups (net.sources.all, perhaps
>     net.bugs.all and net.unix-wizards) 

Don't forget fa.all and any other "digests"  It would also stop most
resume's on net.jobs.

>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.
Will this work?  You'll still see 20-line signatures on 5 line articles.
(Rejecting long signatures might be better).  It would tend to
encourage posting all sources to net.sources (probably a good idea),
since some sites lack the disk capacity for all newsgroups.

It would stop some of the longer flames I've seen and would address my
pet peeve: unedited repostings of the original article in a follow-up,
which require 3 screens at 1200 baud to find the author's new contribution.

It would have rejected Chuq's article -- which went out as 104 lines, including 
a 5-line signature. (-: 

> 3) Etiquette enforcements:
>     I suggest that the inews software be modified to mung headers to 
>     enforce specific cross-posting restrictions. 

Except for:  (is net.general assumed to be the main group for "net"?)
> 	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)
this should be enforced by a file.  (/usr/lib/news/crosspost is my
suggestion.)  This could give a list of unique newsgroups:
	net.general
	net.wanted.all
which cannot be cross-posted or verboten cross postings:
	net.sources.wanted net.sources.all
(all cross-postings would be forced to net.sources.wanted)
I can also see two types of cross-posting bindings:
	1) Positional -- priority to 1st one
	2) Priority -- e.g., net.sources.wanted & net.sources gives
	   priority to net.sources.wanted.  

> 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. 
OK, but there should be some human interface provision so that if the 
discussion goes to a newsgroup the reader doesn't normally follow,
(s)he can see it if (s)he wants.  You'd almost want a "child" reader option
(opposite of "parent") that looks for followup articles (if already
online) and adds a subscription to the followup newsgroup so that
future followups are seen.

I think the direction of these suggestions is a good one, but I'd
hate to see anything implemented without a diverse discussion.  What
may appear logical and obvious to one SA may be totally irrelevant
or inapplicable at another site.  After all, we are all free and
independent human beings in a (quasi-)democratic country.  There's
no big brother who says
	YOU MUST REJECT ALL POSTINGS WITH "From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP"
:-)

	Joel West;  CACI, Inc. - Federal (c/o UC San Diego)
	{ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}sdcsvax!jww
	jww@SDCSVAX.ARPA