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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!munnari!kre
From: kre@munnari.OZ (Robert Elz)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Missing news in the new "mod" groups
Message-ID: <1001@munnari.OZ>
Date: Tue, 5-Nov-85 17:02:26 EST
Article-I.D.: munnari.1001
Posted: Tue Nov  5 17:02:26 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Nov-85 06:35:29 EST
Organization: Comp Sci, Melbourne Uni, Australia
Lines: 49

There are problems with the format of articles being posted
to the new "mod" groups.  (Those that replaced the old "fa"
groups).

Erik has set things up so that the "Path" line has a reasonable
chance of being a valid mail address of the poster of the
article (so a news "r" command has a pretty good chance of
getting to the person who sent the article, just like news in
the "net" groups).

That's a semi-admirable thing to have attempted to do - I'm not
convinced its really right - the Path line is NOT meant to
be used as a mail address, its a list of sites that have
received this news item, and hence, to which it need not be sent
again.

By now, some of you might have detected the problem.  If you
have been reading "mod.computers.sequent" you will have seen
John Quarterman's attempts to post to that group.  In fact,
everybody should have seen them except John (and others at im4u).
This explains the slightly strange nature of those postings.

The problem is that Berkeley is supplying a Path line that
begins

	Path: ucbvax!im4u.utexas.edu!jsq

which is a good mail address to return mail to John.  But the
news code sees that, and says "Aha - this news has been to
im4u already, I don't need to send it there", and it doesn't!
Naturally, any sites that im4u feeds will also miss the news.

This is likely to happen to any news sent to one of these
groups.  That is, you are never likely to see your own
postings (unless the "news" name of your system is different
from its standard "mail" name).  Postings from uucp sites
may be affected worse - I haven't noticed one yet to check.
Here, its possible that your uucp neighbours (on the way
to the arpa gateway) may also not see the posting.  If this
does happen, then large parts of usenet may miss it.

I have reported this problem (via mail) to Erik, I expect
that some means will be found to correct the problem.
Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) this will most likely
mean breaking mail to the Path line, and returning it to
its proper use as a list of usenet sites that have seen
the article.

Robert Elz	..!seismo!munnari!kre  kre%munnari.oz@seismo.css.gov