From: Bill Davidsen (davidsen@prodigy.com)
Date: Mon Aug 06 2001 - 17:52:31 CDT
chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk (Charles Lindsey) wrote:
> In <200107231855.OAA09403@darkstar.prodigy.com> davidsen@prodigy.com (Bill Davidsen) writes:
>
> >I agree with #1, and that seems to sum up what we should do here. When a
> >group changes the major site will or won't drop the old one, at which
> >point the old group will become far less used, and eventually die for
> >all intents and purposes.
>
> But that is not what is observed to happen in practice. Experience
> suggests that the old groups tend not to get deleted on many systems, and
> linger on for years, carrying articles between small (and poorly
> connected) groups of users. The main benefit of mvgroup is that the two
> processes (creation and removal) get coupled together, so that a sysadmin
> who deliberately wanted to retain both would have to work quite hard at
> it (and probably wouldn't bother, as oppsoed to the present situation
> where he may have to intervene manually to remove the old one).
I am a realist. The servers who don't remove the old groups by hand are
not going to remove them by magic, either. That's because they either
have a policy of not removing a group with traffic, recreate a group
with traffic, or are run by people who inherited news when the person
who installed it left.
> >I don't know that we need it, I don't know that we'd use it, and I don't
> >think it belongs in this RFC in any case.
>
> There are two separate issues to consider:
>
> 1. Would it be a useful feature to have, assuming it worked?
Yes, but that's a big assumption.
> 2. Can it (or is it likely to) be implemented on a timescale that would
> ensure it would be regarded as normal practice in a few years time?
As proposed, I doubt it in less than a decade. If you just require that
a new group be created and the old one marked no-posting, maybe. Or than
posts be marked with Follow-up on posting. Or anything other than moving
old posts.
> When it was first suggested on this list, the answer to 1 was a resounding
> yes. IIRC correctly, it was one of the features welcomed on the newsgroups
> when our draft #4 was issued, and it is certainly the case that
> suggestions for renaming groups are made regularly on the config groups,
> and are usually shot down on the grounds of the uncertainties of the
> newgroup/rmgroup method.
Since the failure is caused by a deliberate decision not to honor the
signed control messages we already have, or a decision not to give a
shit about doing it right, you can't make it work, and I think we can
move on to something which can be implemented and will work for the
sites who do it right.
-- -bill davidsen (davidsen@prodigy.com) "The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the last possible moment - but no longer" -me