Too much cross-posting?

[Gary S. Trujillo]

In article <1989Jul7.052540.7258 at eci386.uucp> woods at eci386.UUCP (Greg A. Woods) writes:
> In article <240 at gnosys.UUCP> gst at gnosys.UUCP (Gary S. Trujillo) writes:
> > In article <674 at whizz.uucp> bbh at whizz.UUCP (Bud Hovell) writes
> > > Over the past several months, I've become increasingly aware of the huge
> > > percentage of articles which cross-post between comp.sys.att and unix-pc.*
> > 
> > Well, I don't think cross-posting is inherently a bad thing...
> 
> That's not the point!  Since rn doesn't go get the message id's
> for the articles you have read when it starts, assuming it could,
> you can easily end up re-reading things if you don't have the
> luxury of being able to leave one rn running for the entire day.
> I often read groups several at a time, then do other things.  Rn
> simply cannot do Xref matching when you start and stop it between
> groups, and I don't think it should either!

I find myself able to enter and exit rn at will, and never find myself being
presented with a cross-posted article that I have already read in another
group from the one I am currently reading.  In fact, I just performed a little
experiment to find out whether the fact of cross-posted articles having been
read is kept track of in one's .newsrc, and find that it is - at least in the
version of rn I'm using.  The experiment was conducted by making a copy of my
.newsrc in a temp file, entering rn, reading an article in comp.sys.att that
I knew to be cross-posted to unix-pc.general, exiting rn, and diffing the temp
file against the new contents of .newsrc.  The results are conclusive:  the
article numbers for the cross-posted article were added to the list of already-
read articles in both groups.  These results are consistent with, and in fact
explain why I am able to exit and re-enter rn without having the problem you
describe.  Perhaps you need to recompile rn, as suggested by Lenny Tropiano
in his article of 5 July (Message-ID: <735 at icus.islp.ny.us>, quoted without
permission :-) :

| I have unix-pc.* first also in my .newsrc file.  With rn compiled with 
| the DOXREFS option turned on, you shouldn't have this problem.   If the
| article was READ, JUNKED, KILLED, etc.. in a previous group, and it is
| properly cross-posted to another (later group), you will not see it there.
| Of course if you leave it marked as unread, you'll have no choice in
| seeing it again later (if it is cross-posted).
| 
| I suggest recompiling rn, that should save your "n" key...

As to the specific value of cross-postings between comp.sys.att and
unix-pc.general, I feel that it's probably the best we can do under
present circumstances, given that unix-pc.* newsgroups are not uni-
versally received, and it does seem worthwhile to include folks in
discussions of the UNIXpc who would otherwise not be able to participate.

Maybe the real solution would be to take up Greg's suggestion to create
a newsgroup under the "comp" hierarchy devoted to the UNIXpc.  Is there
someone out there willing to make a formal proposal and manage a "call-
for-vote" process?

Any comments from those not receiving unix-pc.* newsgroups?

-- 
Gary S. Trujillo			      {linus,bbn,m2c}!spdcc!gnosys!gst
Somerville, Massachusetts		     {icus,ima,stech,wjh12}!gnosys!gst