A proposal for a consistent REPOST scheme

[Gary S. Trujillo]

In article <3473 at glacier.ARPA>, reid at glacier.ARPA (Brian Reid) writes:
> 
> Reposting is a nuisance. The net is flooded with a lot of requests for
> reposting, and (invisibly) the mail system is flooded with the replies.
> 
> ...
> 
> The right thing to do is for each reposting request to have a serial number
> or a Repost-request-ID.
> 
> ...
> 
> I believe that all of this algorithm can be easily implemented in a simple
> "repost" program, which I propose to write and post in the next week or two
> unless I hear wild complaints about the idea in the interim.
> -- 
> 	Brian Reid	decwrl!glacier!reid
> 	Stanford	reid at SU-Glacier.ARPA

What happens when someone blows it and reposts incorrectly, either
intentionally or unintentionally?  Especially in the case of source
code, I would imagine there could be massive confusion >= that which
already comes into being with multiple repostings.  One of the many
problems is that, depending on how messages bearing the same message-ID
propogate through the net, recipients end up potentially getting somewhat
or very different versions of something.  And what about the malicious
reposter who changes a few lines here and there?  Seems to me that if
the scheme is to work, it should be only the author who is allowed to
repost (maybe that makes it a different scheme).  I tend to think
mod.sources is a somewhat better solution in this case, for reasons
already cited in other discussions.
-- 
	Gary Trujillo
	(harvard!talcott!gst)