Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!ihlpb!nevin1
From: nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Liber)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Usenet is not a BBS
Message-ID: <8545@ihlpb.ATT.COM>
Date: 17 Aug 88 00:45:08 GMT
References: <401@mace.cc.purdue.edu> <6627@conexch.UUCP> <1917@looking.UUCP> <8544@ihlpb.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 36

In the spirit of my last article, let me propose a variation of Brad
Templeton's proposal:

Proposal: There should be a followup group called 'mail', which the news
software would automatically mail the followup instead of posting it.

Pros:  For all those people who request things by mail, there would be
a lot less posted followups.

Cons:  Automatically generated mail paths are not very reliable.

How some people go around it:  save the message, and post a followup to
a parent article or just post a message to the group.

Possible implementation:  Path of parent is kept in a header line while
the article/letter is being edited (this allows it to be stripped down
or changed, if necessary).  Just before posting, if the newsgroup is
"mail", then the article is mailed.

What kinds of new traffic will be generated as a result of this change:
None that I can think of (yet).

Why put it in at all:  To get more people to mail replys instead of
posting them.

Will the proposal meet the goal:  I think it will help.


Sorry I rambled on for so long.    It's just that I hate to see
well-intentioned ideas cause more harm than good because of lack of
research.
-- 
 _ __		NEVIN J. LIBER	..!att!ihlpb!nevin1	(312) 979-???? IH 4F-410
' )  )				There is something embarrassing about working at
 /  / _ , __o  ____		AT&T and not being able to get a *PHONE*! :-)
/  (_