From: Dennis SCP (dennis.scp@multiweb.nl)
Date: Fri Jun 01 2001 - 15:44:11 CDT
stanley@peak.org (John Stanley) wrote:
> Re: Creating expiring groups, Dennis SCP (dennis.scp@multiweb.nl):
>
> >Users expect articles to be kept as long as newsserver storage
> >capability can provide.
>
> My local newsserver capability looks to be a week or so. How does my local
> newsserver capability define anything? Or are we now agreed that anything
> longer than a "week or so" is an archvie?
I wrote the answer already:
There is no date based maximum expected retention by the users.
Because of the limitation of that local newsserver it gets archived only
for a week.
> >There is no date based maximum expected retention by the users.
>
> Really? Where did that Expires header go, then? I was sure that it
> contained a date.
That is an optional header to let others know that the contents is no
longer relevant. It does not say or mean "Delete After: "
> >Stop beating around the bush and just define a standard offset to the
> >Date header when Archive is set to no. Say 30 days or 100 days.
>
> What is so hard about this? NO means NO. It does not mean "in 30 days" or
> "in 100 days" or "when you think you might get around to it".
The article has to be archived to be spread, that is how Usenet works.
You archive everything on a server for a single group of users. These
users then can read it (or not) in their own time. The only reason for
deleting older articles is when the server gets full.
You can't say no to archiving when you post to usenet. This whole
Archive thing is a farce. Users should be able to ask for a maximum
duration of archiving by stating a date, to make things easy we can
define a standard date. Simply saying that it is up to common policy
when an article is still considered current is so vague I'll call it
naively stupid.
Example:
- on avarice a group deletes articles within 10 to 60 days,
- so you post a article with "Archive: no" and presume it will be
unavailable to most new readers shortly after those 60 days,
- but after 30 days disk prices drop dramatically and many servers
are expanded.
- the average of article deletion goes up to 60 to 1000 days.
Result:
- your article is now practically archived right here on usenet.
- and it is common policy because many servers have upgraded.
What are you gonna do about it?
- call all newsmaster and ask them to lower retention on that group?
- sue them all
- do nothing
See, the current Archive header does absolutely nothing.
Oh, it is not available on a web based archive like google. But what if
someone writes a JAVA newsreader. Duh that works on the web too.
If there was a date involved than it would have been deleted from all
western servers at your requested date, or sooner.
-- Dennis SCP [nl,en,(de)]The Apple G4 Cube. The coolest toaster on the planet.