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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.

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