Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 11/03/84 (WLS Mods); site astrovax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!astrovax!wls From: wls@astrovax.UUCP (William L. Sebok) Newsgroups: net.news.group Subject: Re: Topology, connectivity, and garbage Message-ID: <679@astrovax.UUCP> Date: Sat, 2-Nov-85 01:07:07 EST Article-I.D.: astrovax.679 Posted: Sat Nov 2 01:07:07 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 3-Nov-85 06:30:59 EST References: <787@adobe.UUCP> Reply-To: wls@astrovax.UUCP (William L. Sebok) Organization: Princeton Univ. Astrophysics Lines: 19 In article <787@adobe.UUCP> greid@adobe.UUCP (Glenn Reid) writes: >Another thought: have an "option" to news that allows a site to turn >off a newsgroup with the following behavior: Any article posted to it >that hits that site will be returned to the sender informing him that >the news got no farther than that particular site. That should discourage >people from posting the value of pi. Or any article > n bytes. Or >whatever. This cure would be worse than the disease. I can envision a flood of such returned articles overwhelming the mail links. If the article is mailed back along the arrival path then a site that does this article returning has just doubled the cost of the article to all of the intermediate sites. If instead the article is mailed along an optimized path: the average mail link tends to be more expensive than the average news link (which is more often local), and the article returning site has just flooded some expensive mail links with news articles. -- Bill Sebok Princeton University, Astrophysics {allegra,akgua,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,noao,philabs,princeton,vax135}!astrovax!wls