Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!faline!thumper!ulysses!andante!mit-eddie!bbn!rochester!udel!cranor
From: cranor@udel.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Stoping mistaken crossposted followups (patch enclosed!). . .
Message-ID: <2853@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: 2 Jun 88 21:43:11 GMT
References: <2835@louie.udel.EDU> <9518@g.ms.uky.edu>
Reply-To: cranor@udel.EDU (Chuck Cranor)
Organization: University of Delaware
Lines: 37
Posted: Thu Jun  2 17:43:11 1988

In article <9518@g.ms.uky.edu> david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) writes:
>For one thing there are discussions which *must* continue across
>multiple groups.  (For instance, discussions about new group proposals
>are supposed to be cross-posted amongst all the interested groups.)

Then direct the followups to more than one group 
(e.g. "Folloup-To: news.admin, news.software.b" ).

>For another This is the wrong place to do it ... my roomate came up
>with a perfectly acceptable way the other night.  The control point
>isn't the news software but the news reader instead.  The news reader
>starts you with a Newsgroups: of the newsgroup you are currently
>reading, but leaves a header in place that has the original list of
>newsgroups (for convenience).  Most likely when you're making a
>followup it will pertain most to the newsgroup you're reading, so this
>will catch most cases.  But if your followup pertains to many
>newsgroups you can use editor commands to grab the newsgroup list from
>the Original-Newsgroups: line and insert it in the Newsgroups: line.
>To complete it you have something strip out the Original-Newsgroups:
>line before feeding to inews.

Not a bad idea.  However, you must change all your news readers to do it!
Since everything goes through inews, it is the easiest place to
make the change.   The main thing you are fighting is the inertia of the net.
It takes time to go out of your way to update working software.
[BTW, that's why having inews fix outgoing news is good.  It
 helps to by-pass some of the massive inertia of the net.  If just
 a few of the high speed NNTP sites (like UDel) start patching
 crosspostings with "Followup-To", then it will put a major dent
 in the crossposting problem...]

					Chuck
-- 
Chuck Cranor
University of Delaware  PHONE: (302)-451-6660 (UDel), (302)-737-5852 (home)
ARPA: cranor@udel.EDU,  UUCP: ...!!udel.edu!cranor
"I'd like to see John the Baptist's impersonation of Graham Hill." - R.J. Gumby