Subject:
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Re: lugnet.dev.null or somesuch
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.general
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Date:
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Tue, 25 Jul 2000 16:28:00 GMT
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Viewed:
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310 times
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In lugnet.admin.general, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> In lugnet.admin.general, Todd Lehman writes:
> > In lugnet.admin.general, Frank Filz writes:
> > > I was just thinking that everyonce in a while I post something which I
> > > don't expect any replies to, it would be neat if there was a
> > > lugnet.dev.null or lugnet.trashbin or something which we could set
> > > followups to. The group could either actually discard the posts, or keep
> > > the posts. It would be nice if they didn't show up in the web interface
> > > as replies, at least by default.
> >
> > How different is .off-topic.debate from that already?
>
> Than a trashbin? Well, quite a bit different I would hope, at least the
> participants would like to think so. What are you trying to say here?
Undo. :) I was thinking of all the times on Usenet that I'd seen "followups
to alt.dev.null" or "followups to /dev/null" used when someone made a flame or
quip or other flippant statement and wanted to deflect replies to avoid a big
debate or religious war. Sounds like what Frank's suggesting is something not
for wimpily eschewing debates but actually for times when you'd really want it
for a good reason.
> > How many net-savvy people who wanted to post a real reply would simply
> > change the ng line prior to posting?
>
> I'm net savvy and I forget somewhere between 10 and 25 percent of the time.
> Setting followups correctly seems to be a challenge for me, it's so easy to
> forget
What I meant was, if there was a trashbin that could be set via the Followup-To
field, wouldn't someone who _really_ wanted to reply simply sneak around the
block by changing the ng line? (Or worse, if they didn't know how to do that,
copying the message and attempting to repost the body in situ?)
> > What would newbies think when they posted a reply not knowing
> > where they reply was going, and their reply never showed up?
>
> Hopefully if this was implemented in the way Frank is suggesting, a big
> warning would come up when they tried to post saying "followups have been
> set to dev.null and your reply will not be seen, enter the group or groups
> you want this post to go to, if you really disagree with the author's intent
> that it not be followup-able" and this warning would come up before any
> content was created. (kind of like the current "you're not authorized to
> post but I'm not telling you exactly why, have fun trying to figure out the
> posting setup screen" does now, or at least like the "your message was not
> accepted" which happens after the content is created, which isn't quite as
> good)
A "sneaky" way to implement that at all levels (HTTP, NNTP, SMTP) might be to
allow the 'Followup-To' header to be set to a standard group name like 'junk'
but then weed it out (as it currently is) at reply-time. That is, if you set
'Followup-To' to 'junk' (or whatever the special name was) and someone replied
to that message, then their newsreader would propagate the name 'junk' from
the 'Followup-To' header to the 'Newsgroups' header and their message would be
rejected by the server because the group 'junk' doesn't exist. Then they'd get
the standard error message of "Your message is addressed to a group which does
not exist" (not especially friendly).
Another thing that would kinda work is to use the standard NNTP 'Followup-To'
setting of 'poster' -- although this actually directs replies to your email
address rather than to a void. (That's probably not a real solution.)
My main concern is making something that tells people that their post was
accepted but was actually thrown away. That is, I think it would be bad to
make a "bottomless pit" or "total void" group -- although I think it could be
good to make a "your post hits a brick wall and goes splat" group. As long
as there's a warning somehow somewhere (perhaps a rejection notice) that the
post wouldn't actually be accepted and posted, then we're looking at something
safe.
BTW, wouldn't it be nice if the preview-before-posting page helped people let
off a bit of steam? Someone could compose a nasty flamage reply and then see
their message all formatted up like a real one, but then cancel it before
posting. :)
--Todd
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Message has 1 Reply:
Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: lugnet.dev.null or somesuch
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| (...) Than a trashbin? Well, quite a bit different I would hope, at least the participants would like to think so. What are you trying to say here? (...) I'm net savvy and I forget somewhere between 10 and 25 percent of the time. Setting followups (...) (24 years ago, 25-Jul-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
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