Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ptsfa!nonvon!mc68020 From: mc68020@nonvon.UUCP Newsgroups: news.groups,news.misc,news.stargate,news.sysadmin,news.admin Subject: Re: USENET constitution (Was Re: Spaf Pro-vote) Message-ID: <604@nonvon.UUCP> Date: Thu, 9-Jul-87 02:52:30 EDT Article-I.D.: nonvon.604 Posted: Thu Jul 9 02:52:30 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jul-87 17:45:21 EDT References: <772@hao.UCAR.EDU> Organization: NONVON Systems Computer Research Group Lines: 32 Xref: utgpu news.groups:1115 news.misc:609 news.stargate:212 news.sysadmin:257 news.admin:580 in article <772@hao.UCAR.EDU>, woods@hao.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) says: I don't think you can get any > site admin in his right mind (backbone or otherwise) to agree to let a > committee tell him what groups to carry and not carry on his machine. > Don't get me wrong, I'm all for having the rules more clearly stated, and > I welcome suggestions, but I can never agree to ALWAYS abide by them. True enough, in as much as the current news botch (uhm, er...software) doesn't offer adequate flexibility to handle such problems in a reasonable fashion. I think the news software should offer a site newsadmin several levels of options in handling newsgroups (examples:) NULL don't carry it, won' forward it FEED don't carry it for local readers, but WILL forward it CARRY carry it for local readers AND will forward it Isn't all that difficult to cobble up now, is it? (oh, sorry...except for the fact that the almost total lack of documentation in the news software, combined with the unGHODly mess it has become through Ghu only knows how many generations of patching, makes the damned package virtually solid as concrete. Only those who've been playing with the sources for YEARS have any hope of making any sense of it) (separate issue, sorry... see my flamage in lang.c about coding style and documentation) Seriously, I see why the admins at certain sites could run into considerable difficulty carrying certain types, or names, of newsgroups, due to organizational biases. By simply passing them through, without processing them to the local user base, this problem is alleviated, while still making the groups available to the downstream sites. UUCP:{ihnp4,ames,qantel,sun,seismo,amdahl,lll-crg,pyramid}!ptsfa!nonvon!mc68020