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Number   :  4330
Date     :  2003-04-17
Author   :  CBFalconer
Subject  :  Re: This discussion group.
Size(KB) :  2


Dwayne Reid wrote:
> At 03:53 AM 4/16/03 -0500, Kan Yabumoto wrote:
> 
> > I wonder if it's time for us to consider making
> > this group to be one of the usenet newsgroups.
> > I'm quite ignorant about the mechanics of how a
> > newsgroup is formed, and maintained.
> 
> Please do NOT do this!
> 
> If this becomes a newsgroup, I will not read it anymore. I just
> don't have time.
> 
> As it is now, the emails from this list come to me and get
> filtered into the proper mailbox and I read them when I have
> time (always off-line). News requires a 2 step process:
> identify the messages and mark them, then retrieve the
> messages and read them. Agent makes this easy but it is
> still more hassle than having the messages come to me.

You can handle all that with Netscape, at least 4.7x. It
downloads all my newsgroups (and e-mail) and gets offline. No
marking involved. Often a one or two minute connect. As I
understand it the 7.x is coming along for news reading, and should
soon be as capable as 4.7. It is already supposed to be superior
as a browser.

> 
> Another point: spam is far worse on any of the newsgroups that I
> have monitored. Email harvesting from newsgroups is another
> concern.

This can be handled by making it a moderated newsgroup. The
penalty is that nothing appears until released by the moderator. 
I believe there is automated software available for this which
will auto-release from known posters, auto-kill according to
filters, and just leave the residue for moderator checking.

Why don't you see what Seebs, the moderator of
computer.lang.c.moderated, can tell you? A group on the comp.
area is probably hard to set up, but the alt. area is wide open,
as far as I know (which is far from authoritative). Something
like alt.windows.xxcopy maybe.

A newsgroup is much superior to a mailing list, in some ways. 
Traffic here is not yet large enough to really warrant going
either way, but the day may come. For one thing a newsgroup
doesn't jam the receivers mailbox when he is away for a period.

If you do something of the sort please make it a firm policy to
reject HTML mail, binary attachments, and to strongly discourage
top-posting. They can all be handled by bouncing with an
explanatory message.

-- 
Chuck F (cbfalconer@y...) (cbfalconer@w...)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
 USE worldnet address!



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