From: Brad Templeton (brad@templetons.com)
Date: Fri Mar 10 2000 - 12:44:29 CST
On Fri, Mar 10, 2000 at 09:56:14AM +0000, Charles Lindsey wrote:
> In <200003091908.OAA10911@darkstar.prodigy.com> davidsen@prodigy.com (Bill Davidsen) writes:
>
> >That's just the kind of abuse I would like to prevent! We have cancel
> >and supercedes now, you propose to replace something you posted with
> >something else for every article? An irresponsible poster would retract
> >on the fly every time something was challenged, the "I didn't say that,
> >go pull the article and see" trick.
>
> Doing that kind of replacement was one of the prime reasons for inventing
> Replaces in the first place. Where were you when those discussions were
> taking place?
More to the point there is nothing preventing, and in fact I would
encourage, either some web site or your server maintaining old copies
in a junk-style group for those who want to search for them.
However, today with the properly implemented semantics of supersede, or
even better cancel and repost, I can alter what I say so that people
who never read the original don't see the old one, and nobody can
find the old one.
At least with Replaces the fact that the article is a replacement is
clearly marked, unlike cancel and repost.