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From: jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group
Subject: Re: Re: Removing net.flame
Message-ID: <491@oliveb.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 8-Jul-85 18:17:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: oliveb.491
Posted: Mon Jul  8 18:17:42 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Jul-85 06:18:16 EDT
References: <3892@alice.UUCP> <484@oliveb.UUCP>, <268@luke.UUCP> <1563@ecsvax.UUCP>
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 51
Xref: watmath net.news:3611 net.news.group:3243

> 
> You've missed the point of the prior discussion, which was not just that
> net.flame was offensive to some, but that (1) it takes up gobs of disk
> space, communications time, and the like, and (2) it might at least
> theoretically leave a site passing it open to libel suits.  Ignoring
> net.flame hardly deals with those two problems.
> -- 
> D Gary Grady
> Duke U Comp Center, Durham, NC  27706
> (919) 684-3695
> USENET:  {seismo,decvax,ihnp4,akgua,etc.}!mcnc!ecsvax!dgary

Can we remove disk space from the list of complaints about news volumn!

If you want to claim that your system is overloaded (cpu) or that your
modems are busy then fine.  But if your complaint is that you don't have
enough disk space then I think you are stupid.

Why don't you just expire the groups you think are junk after X days.
I hear about lots of sites that expire jokes, flames, religion, etc.
after a few days.  When our disk gets full I do it too.  By expiring the
"junk" quickly you can keep the disk usage down while still feeding it
to other sites.

The same goes for sites that won't add another feed because "we don't
have enough disk space".  Havn't you heard of batched news.  With the
F option your overhead is limited to a list of filenames, one file of a
few Kbytes.

I also question how many sites are really short of cpu cycles.  I have
yet to see a machine that was busy at 3AM.  (No examples please, I am
sure there are a few.)  With batching you can control when the news gets
sent.

So the only real resource is communications.  If your modems can't keep
up with the volumn during the non-peak hours or if you are paying extra
for that communication then you have a perfect reason to limit it.

Before someone flames me for what they thought I said let me state my
possition.  I think any site can carry what it wants and refuse what it
wants.  I just don't like to hear them justifying censorship with false
reasons.  I don't read flame, jokes, religion, or politics.  However I
don't intend to remove them just because they don't interest me.

So will the next SA to complain about news resources please tell us
whether they have attempted to use batching, compression, early
expiration, and scheduling during off hours.  Otherwise just blow it
away because you don't like it and quit trying to justify yourself.

				Jerry Aguirre @ Olivetti ATC
{hplabs|fortune|idi|ihnp4|tolerant|allegra|tymix}!oliveb!jerry