Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site almsa-1 Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!almsa-1!control From: control@almsa-1 (William Martin) Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Re: cleaning up the net -- software solutions proposed Message-ID: <184@almsa-1> Date: Tue, 16-Jul-85 10:59:29 EDT Article-I.D.: almsa-1.184 Posted: Tue Jul 16 10:59:29 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 18-Jul-85 06:04:39 EDT References: <2982@nsc.UUCP> Reply-To: control@almsa-1.UUCP (William Martin) Distribution: net Organization: ALMSA-1, St. Louis, MO Lines: 41 The article-length restriction cannot be applied to the "fa" groups, as digests there are long intentionally. It should not be applied to the "mod" groups, as some of those post in digest form, and, anyhow, their contents are, by definition, pre-screened for suitability, so there is no reason to impose outside restrictions. Because this cannot be applied across the board, I think it will be a mistake to impose it at all. There are many non-flame good and rewarding long postings on the net -- I can think of quite a few off the top of my head: there is a regular and quite long religious-lesson posted weekly or so in net.religion.jewish, there was an excellent survey of construction techniques posted in net.analog, net.ham-radio regularily has long equipment reviews and lists of frequencies to monitor, there have been long summaries of product info in net.consumers, a long article on built-in sprinkler systems in net.garden, etc., etc. -- the list is probably endless. I often post long stuff myself. I take pride, though, in avoiding the annoying practice of including much of the preceeding discussion -- the worst technique is to have many many lines preceeded by ">"s with just a few lines of newly-added text. I give the net readership credit for remembering what has been recently discussed; after all, I do, so you all are also expected to have the same qualifications I have... A short summary (newly-written) of the context is all that is needed to remind people of what has gone before. If a long posting is freshly written, and not a rehash of what has been read before, that length is probably worthwhile. So, instead of arbitrary length restrictions, remove the "F" command from readnews and change postnews' follow-up action to not include the original posting. (That is, if you want to make any software changes at all in this area -- I think a user-education program, which would be aimed at those who include lots of previously-posted stuff in their postings, whould be just as good, and probably better.) You will note that I did *not* include any of Chuq's message in this one. Regards, Will Martin ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA UUCP/Usenet: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin