Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rochester!rutgers!husc6!cmcl2!phri!roy From: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Expiration dates on OtherRealms Message-ID: <2823@phri.UUCP> Date: Tue, 28-Jul-87 07:31:07 EDT Article-I.D.: phri.2823 Posted: Tue Jul 28 07:31:07 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 29-Jul-87 05:42:03 EDT References: <2525@hoptoad.uucp> <6957@g.ms.uky.edu> Reply-To: roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) Organization: Public Health Research Inst. (NY, NY) Lines: 27 In article <6957@g.ms.uky.edu> sean@ms.uky.csnet (Sean Casey) writes: > I doubt anyone is needlessly suffering for it. I believe the > fact that no one else is complaining is an indication of this. Actually, I think the reason nobody complained is because nobody noticed. Most of us don't have a lot of time to waste babysitting news and resent it when anybody does anything which makes it more difficult to run. True, I could special-case r.m.or and put a "find" in my /usr/lib/crontab to zap the old articles, but think what would happen if everybody started doing that? What happens when the good folks in unix-wizards decide they don't like answering the same questions over and over again so they start putting long Expire: headers on their answers? And what about the AIDS info postings; don't they deserve long Expire: lines? And the definitive compendiums of light bulb jokes? And..... As for Chuq's complaint that if he doesn't put Expire: headers in, the arbitron poll will miss his stuff, that's the kind of pathetic reasoning I expect out of New York City politicians. A couple of years ago, we had a case of a bicycle hitting a pedestrian. The pedestrian was wearing earphones so couldn't hear the bike coming. The City Council passed a law making it illegal for *bicyclists* to wear earphones! The answer is to fix arbitron, not cow-tow to its bugs by keeping articles around longer. -- Roy Smith, {allegra,cmcl2,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016