Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!list-injector
From: woods@robohack (Greg A. Woods)
Newsgroups: can.usrgroup
Subject: Re: changing USENET to suit one's system
Message-ID: <8911152233.AA06952@robohack.UUCP>
Date: 16 Nov 89 03:33:35 GMT
Reply-To: woods@robohack (Greg A. Woods)
Distribution: ont
Lines: 64
In-Reply-To: Message dated Tue Nov 14  4:17 from evan@telly.on.ca (Evan Leibovitch) Re: "changing USENET to suit one's system"
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (6.5.6 6/30/89)

[ On Tue Nov 14  4:17 (Re: "changing USENET to suit one's system"), Evan Leibovitch wrote: ]
> The whole bruhaha over the creation of sci.aquaria brought this to a
> head, but it's been on my mind for a number of months:

I just ignored it!  :-)

> I run a public access Usenet system, one which hopes to attract people
> who are intelligent but not necessarily Unix literate. I want to
> make life easier for subscribers, which means I want to make it as easy
> as possible for them to find the appropriate forum for whatever they
> want to discuss.

Write some documentation and force posters to read it, and build a
keyword, or better yet some sort of expert system based poster.  Then
no matter what someone posts, it will stand a chance of going into an
appropriate newsgroup.  You can do the same for reading:  a keyword
or expert system .newsrc generator.

> In this respect, to me, the Usenet naming hierarchy sucks. Big time.
> I honestly don't think it takes a rocket scientist to come up
> with something better. I could. Any of you could. And I want to.

Maybe you don't remember the hassle of the last "great" renaming.

> Compounding the problem is now that this site gets news from both Usenet
> and CanConfMail/SmartNet, there are conflicting newsgroup names for the
> same subject from different sources (for instance, ccm.ibm.pc and
> comp.sys.ibm.pc)

You care about CanConfMail/SmartNet?  They are still in the dark
ages.  Let them come to us, instead of the other way around.  If you
want to see this stuff through your newsreader, make a one-way,
preferably terminal gateway, with a local namespace.  I.e. don't
re-transmit it to other USENET sites, and don't build a reply
or reverse gateway mechanism.

> I want to develop my own newsgroup 'namespace' for use on my system.
> [....]
> Does the Usenet software currently in use allow me to re-arrange the
> hierarchies *only for the purposes of reading on this site*, without
> scrambling it all up for my feeds (both upstream and downstream).
> [....]
> Is this possible to implement without redoing major pieces of either the
> routing or reading software?

Not that I can see.  Think about it.  Your sys file lists the groups
you get and pass on.  The article database is filesystem based, with
the groups specifying directories.  The receiving and transmitting
actions are done separately, but are controlled by the same sys file.
Articles must pass through the database before being re-transmitted.
It would be easy if you simply passed on your news as-is, but that's
not often the case, especially for a branch site with only leaf sites
downstream.  (I.e. instead of batching, just forward the incoming
batches as-is.)

On the other hand, C News does allow you to move things between groups
to a certain degree.  This will affect downstream sites as far as I
know.

-- 
						Greg A. Woods

woods@{robohack,gate,tmsoft,ontmoh,utgpu,gpu.utcs.Toronto.EDU,utorgpu.BITNET}
+1 416 443-1734 [h]   +1 416 595-5425 [w]   VE3-TCP   Toronto, Ontario; CANADA