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- Newsgroups: alt.config
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!jmalcolm
- From: jmalcolm@sura.net (Joseph Malcolm)
- Subject: Re: announcing the alt.cabal
- Message-ID: <1993Jan26.000435.26038@darwin.sura.net>
- Sender: news@darwin.sura.net (USENET News System)
- Organization: SURAnet, College Park, MD, USA, NA, Earth, Milky Way
- References: <VIXIE.93Jan24142358@cognition.pa.dec.com>
- Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 00:04:35 GMT
- Lines: 51
-
- Distribution: alt removed since it doesn't seem particularly
- meaningful.
-
- In article <VIXIE.93Jan24142358@cognition.pa.dec.com> vixie@pa.dec.com (Paul A Vixie) writes:
- >several of the larger sites are having trouble with their 6500-line active
- >files and have been looking for ways to trim some of the junk out of them.
-
- What trouble have they been having? (We have a 6000-line active
- file here, although with only 5400 actual newsgroups.)
-
- >what we've come up with is a completely voluntary subscription-only service
- >that will let the "alt" groups be managed from a central source. that source
- >is the "vix.com" server, the person who will issue the newgroup/rmgroup
- >control messages is "vixie@vix.com", and the "Distribution:" on all such
- >newgroup/rmgroup/checkgroups control messages will be "alt.cabal".
-
- A comment: the default INN value of BAD_DISTRIBS includes "*.*"; this
- currently only applies to new postings, but who knows what the future
- holds. You may wish to avoid distribution names with "." in them.
-
- >the first members of the alt.cabal will be vix.com, decwrl, and uunet.
- >others are welcome to apply; all you need to do is make sure that you
- >are running INN and that your control.ctl file contains a few more
- >lines than it has now and that your "newsfeeds" is properly set up to
- >accept this new distribution without leaking it to people who have not
- >subscribed to the service.
-
- I would be interested in seeing what you think should and should not exist,
- but I would not necessarily want to follow all of your decisions.
- Will you still send your control messages to people who may not
- follow them?
-
- Also, why the restriction to INN sites?
-
- >all i want is a way to wipe
- >out the ones that aren't in use, rename the ones that should be
- >renamed, and so on. for example, there is an alt.missing-children
- >newsgroup that noone uses because it was supplanted by
- >alt.missing-kids. this kind of junk is useless to *everyone*.
-
- Agreed.
-
- >i can't wait to hear the flames from people who insist that this is unfair
- >in some way. given that it is strictly voluntary and requires explicit action
- >to receive the control messages, i am not going to be terribly receptive to
- >complaints. but send them anyway, they should be amusing.
-
- Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
- --
- Joseph Malcolm jmalcolm@sura.net
- SURAnet Operations +1 301 982 4600
-