x-no archive
sf
If I just want to x-no archive in one place only (an online web forum
that steals usenet content), how do I specify it using Agent 2x?
TIA
--
Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.
Jim
>
>If I just want to x-no archive in one place only (an online web forum
>that steals usenet content), how do I specify it using Agent 2x?
>
Try this:-
With the focus on your problem forum.
Hit "Alt+Enter"
Select "Posting Messages"
Tick "Overide default settings"
Tick "Prevent usenet messages from being archived [X-No archive]"
OK your way out.
Regards,
Jim
Ralph Fox
sf wrote:
> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 2.0/32.652
> If I just want to x-no archive in one place only (an online web forum
> that steals usenet content), how do I specify it using Agent 2x?
I take it that what you are looking for is this:
• This particular online web forum will see your X-No-Archive header
(and will also honour it);
• Some other Usenet archive(s) won't see your X-No-Archive header
and will archive your post.
There are only two ways in which you can do this
(1) This online web forum needs to have its own personal no archive
header which it and only it recognizes.
Even if this online web forum had its own personal no archive
header, it is unlikely someone here could tell you what that
header is. You haven't told us which is the online web forum.
To add custom headers in Agent 2, see the follow-up next door
in alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent.modified.
(2) Alternatively,
• You post the same message simultaneously through multiple
news servers.
• All copies must have the same message ID.
• Some copies will have the X-No-Archive header, other copies
others will not.
• You need to do this in such a way that a copy with X-No-Archive
gets to the web forum before a copy without X-No-Archive.
• You need to do this in such a way that a copy without
X-No-Archive gets to your other web archive(s) before a copy
with X-No-Archive.
• This may or may not be possible. It will depend on where the
web forum and the other archive(s) are in Usenet topology.
• Even if it is possible, it will require an extremely good
knowledge of Usenet topology to perform.
• Even if it were possible, Agent 2 is *not* the tool for this.
This job needs a custom-built tool.
--
Regards
Ralph
Loren Pechtel
>
>If I just want to x-no archive in one place only (an online web forum
>that steals usenet content), how do I specify it using Agent 2x?
>
>TIA
If they already steal content you think they'll respect an x-no
archive tag???
DevilsPGD
That all depends -- Displaying content from usenet on a website isn't
really stealing as long as it's fairly obvious where it came from, and
properly attributed. Nobody gave Dejanews (now Google Groups) any
magical "you and you alone may make a web interface to usenet" license,
and they're not the only one doing it either.
If they're claiming usenet to be their own forums or similar then that's
a different situation, but if they're just running a web based method of
accessing usenet...
They might honour X-NA, they might do what Google Groups does and cause
these articles to expire after a few days, or they might ignore it
completely. X-NA is voluntary, and if they don't consider themselves an
archive and instead just consider themselves a usenet server with long
retention then they might feel justified in ignoring it.
Keep in mind that not all usenet servers expire articles either, X-NA
flag or otherwise.
sf
According to people who have checked in the forum I post from, the
answer is Yes, they honor x-no archive. I noticed one posted has the
web forum in question specified as x-no archive, but that person
drives a Mac and isn't using Agent. I don't see how I can modify x-no
archive, so I thought I'd ask here.
sf
<Still-Just-A-...@crazyhat.net> wrote:
> They might honour X-NA, they might do what Google Groups does and cause
> these articles to expire after a few days,
That's what they do.
DevilsPGD
You can set X-NA flag in Agent, but it's all-or-nothing, you can't send
different versions of a message to different sites.
sf
<Still-Just-A-...@crazyhat.net> wrote:
> You can set X-NA flag in Agent, but it's all-or-nothing, you can't send
> different versions of a message to different sites.
OK, thanks. That's what I saw: all or nothing and was wondering if
I'd missed a way to modify. Maybe that's a tweak, Forte can work on
for the future.
DevilsPGD
<s...@geemail.com> was claimed to have wrote:
>On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:01:46 -0700, DevilsPGD
><Still-Just-A-...@crazyhat.net> wrote:
>
>> You can set X-NA flag in Agent, but it's all-or-nothing, you can't send
>> different versions of a message to different sites.
>
>OK, thanks. That's what I saw: all or nothing and was wondering if
>I'd missed a way to modify. Maybe that's a tweak, Forte can work on
>for the future.
No, there's nothing to tweak or fix. There's no method in the protocol
to send different versions of posts to specific servers or omit a single
server or anything like that.
Loren Pechtel
<sne...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>ŠMon, 09 Aug 2010 17:24:56 -0700, DevilsPGD <Still-Just-A-...@crazyhat.net>, wrote:
>>In message <4c60940d$0$5400$c3e...@news.astraweb.com> Loren Pechtel
>><lorenp...@hotmail.invalid.com> was claimed to have wrote:
>>>On Sun, 08 Aug 2010 16:02:22 -0700, sf <s...@geemail.com> wrote:
>>>>If I just want to x-no archive in one place only (an online web forum
>>>>that steals usenet content), how do I specify it using Agent 2x?
>>>
>>>If they already steal content you think they'll respect an x-no
>>>archive tag???
>>
>>That all depends -- Displaying content from usenet on a website isn't
>>really stealing as long as it's fairly obvious where it came from, and
>>properly attributed. Nobody gave Dejanews (now Google Groups) any
>>magical "you and you alone may make a web interface to usenet" license,
>>and they're not the only one doing it either.
>
>
>Google honours the x-no-archive tag after an initial period.
>
>The owners/operators of web sites, not forums, that grab newsgroup posts
>and put them on their site for good can only be described as sleaze bags
>in my mind.
>
>My guess it that it is one of the reasons why a lot of posters in
>newsgroups use fake or munged addresses.
I started using a munged address years ago when I started getting so
many viruses in my mailbox that it overflowed in an hour. I munged it
and within a few days the flood stopped.
DevilsPGD
<S...@NOTforMAIL.not> was claimed to have wrote:
>There was a time that Comcast had a agreement that customers
>could use Giganews for Usenet ... the only problem was that
>Comcast was in charge of the header info which included the
>NNTP-Posting-Host which nailed people to their fairly exact
>geographic area ... I therefore avoided using Giga, except for
>maybe a handful of times ...
Not that it matters now, but Agent is capable of reading and writing
from different servers, so you could have used the free Giganews account
and posted through a different free server if desired.
>If there are more archive sites, I don't know about them ...
This largely depends on your definition of "archive" and "site"
For example, Giganews keeps all text posts forever.
Ralph Fox
sf wrote:
> On Mon, 09 Aug 2010 20:01:46 -0700, DevilsPGD
> <Still-Just-A-...@crazyhat.net> wrote:
>
> > You can set X-NA flag in Agent, but it's all-or-nothing, you can't send
> > different versions of a message to different sites.
>
> OK, thanks. That's what I saw: all or nothing and was wondering if
> I'd missed a way to modify. Maybe that's a tweak, Forte can work on
> for the future.
Nothing Forté could do. Whatever you upload to your own news server
gets distributed to all sites.
Analogy: Years ago, you used a Remington typewriter to write a letter
to your local newspaper. The letter appeared in all editions of the
newspaper. Then you thought you would prefer to say things a different
way in the mid-day edition to the morning edition. So you ask maybe
there is a special tweak which Remington typewriters can work on for
the future.
DevilsPGD
<S...@NOTforMAIL.not> was claimed to have wrote:
>Sorry, but I have absolutely no use for Giganews ...
Agreed -- Just pointing out that they save everything forever now, so
there isn't a ton of point worrying about who else archives you, your
words still exist.
DevilsPGD
<S...@NOTforMAIL.not> was claimed to have wrote:
>Then we'd best watch what we say ;-)
>
>But I also wonder just how much they save for how long ...
Last I checked it was absolutely all of usenet. Binaries and text
alike, they're simply not expiring anything.
My understanding is that their intention is to never ever expire text
again, and retain binaries as long as it makes economic sense. For now,
the badge of "longest retention" is worth a lot of money to them, and
unless they start expiring it's literally impossible for anyone else to
beat them at it.
At the moment they're sitting with a little over 7 years of text
retention, and a couple years of binary retention.
DevilsPGD
<ma...@cleopatra.co.uk> was claimed to have wrote:
>In alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent, (Jim Higgins) wrote in
><9tq5669vulq6jqd26...@4ax.com>::
>
>>I don't understand why, under your apparent definition of "sleaze
>>bags," Google isn't a sleaze bag. Perhaps it hinges on honoring the
>>x-no-archive tag, which Google only honors after 7 days or so. But
>>it's all easily solved by following the rule that says, "if you don't
>>want it seen by the whole world, don't post it."
>
>Making it available for 7 days is fair usage,
Agreed.
>I'd say- otherwise, any
>news server that made the message available other than instantaneously
>would meet your "sleazebag" definition.
Once upon a time there was a bit of a difference between being a news
server (NNTP only) vs an archive (web based), at least before Dejanews
allowed posting.
Today I'm not sure the difference really exists, so I'm not sure how I'd
really expect X-NA support to be handled in practice.
Google isn't the only web based usenet client out there, and although
they obviously have the biggest/longest archive, they're also very
clearly a news server and client since they allow full two way
communication, not just a read-only archive.
How is this any different than NewsReader.com, or the microsoft.public.*
groups (before Microsoft started shutting down their interface) or the
various other places that offer web based usenet access?
Compare this to Giganews, who started cleanly in the news server
category, but no longer expires any text articles and has retention
measured in years. Are they an archive or a news server? Should they
start removing X-NA tagged articles and if so, at what point?
If Giganews started matching the 7-day rule, how do you plan on
enforcing the same across all other news servers? Doing so without
relatively universal support simply won't happen since it puts Giganews
at a competitive disadvantage.
Plus we shouldn't forget that X-NA isn't a formal standard, and there is
no obligation to treat messages tagged this way at all different, Google
Groups honours the flag voluntarily.
DevilsPGD
<S...@NOTforMAIL.not> was claimed to have wrote:
>On Thu, 12 Aug 2010 11:49:01 -0700, DevilsPGD
><Still-Just-A-...@crazyhat.net> wrote:
>
>>Plus we shouldn't forget that X-NA isn't a formal standard, and there is
>>no obligation to treat messages tagged this way at all different, Google
>>Groups honours the flag voluntarily.
>
>I realize I'm using a rather old version of Agent (it
>works w/ AgentPost) but I've always considered
>the X-No-Archive to be a request which can be
>ignored ...
Yup, that's pretty much what I said too...
sf
> They contract w/ isp's so they can use the Giga Usenet
> service ... then when porn & advertising spam is posted
> & one files an abuse complaint, based on the
> FAQ/TOS/AUP of the newsgroup &/or giga, they tell
> you, "not our customer" ... rather disingenuous, I'd say ...
Giganews lost me as a future customer because of the way they handled
customer service situations when comcast contracted with them for
usenet. There was mutual finger pointing and saying "It's not my
problem to solve". Neither one took responsibility for anything. If
Giganews had just resolved problems gracefully, I wouldn't have looked
any further for a news group provider after comcast jettisoned usenet.
Albert Ross
<Still-Just-A-...@crazyhat.net> wrote:
>In message <s6t366lu51k5buk5o...@4ax.com> Sj
><S...@NOTforMAIL.not> was claimed to have wrote:
>
>>On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 16:55:23 -0700, DevilsPGD
>><Still-Just-A-...@crazyhat.net> wrote:
>>
>>>In message <evk366lvcppctg44v...@4ax.com> Sj
>>><S...@NOTforMAIL.not> was claimed to have wrote:
>>>
>>>>Sorry, but I have absolutely no use for Giganews ...
>>>
>>>Agreed -- Just pointing out that they save everything forever now, so
>>>there isn't a ton of point worrying about who else archives you, your
>>>words still exist.
>>
>>Then we'd best watch what we say ;-)
>>
>>But I also wonder just how much they save for how long ...
>
>Last I checked it was absolutely all of usenet. Binaries and text
>alike, they're simply not expiring anything.
>
>My understanding is that their intention is to never ever expire text
>again, and retain binaries as long as it makes economic sense. For now,
>the badge of "longest retention" is worth a lot of money to them, and
>unless they start expiring it's literally impossible for anyone else to
>beat them at it.
>
>At the moment they're sitting with a little over 7 years of text
>retention, and a couple years of binary retention.
Once I had a UK server which never ran expires on UK groups. That was
a pretty useful archive- until it hit some hard limit in INN and
crashed it. The new server never had the old posts transferred over.
The upside of the long retention at Giga is that you can go back and
download the entire contents of a group you only just found. The
downside is that it takes ages and eats disk just for the overviews.
I wonder what they'll hit first, a limit in their current software or
the expense of all the storage.
Ralph Fox
Albert Ross wrote:
> I wonder what they'll hit first, a limit in their current software or
> the expense of all the storage.
Or yet another limit, a limit in many newsreaders:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent/browse_frm/thread/66fe2dbea2741e4c/9145820256a79ccd?tvc=1#9145820256a79ccd
--
Regards
Ralph
DevilsPGD
<sp...@devnull.com.invalid> was claimed to have wrote:
>On Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:32:07 -0400, Arno Martens
><sne...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>The owners/operators of web sites, not forums, that grab newsgroup posts
>>and put them on their site for good can only be described as sleaze bags
>>in my mind.
>
>Some of them actually charge for access.
Most methods of accessing usenet aren't free...
Albert Ross
wrote:
Oh yes, good point.
One problem I *have* found is new articles threading themselves into
old threads presumably due to duplicated message IDs.
Albert Ross
True, but using an nntp server gets access to *all* the groups it
carries, the websites charge for access only to a few.
And of course the free access sites like Medkb, Gardenbanter etc. are
stuffed with ads so you pay by proxy
Ralph Fox
Albert Ross wrote:
> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 6.00/32.1186
If this is happening in Agent (alone), it is much more likely
to be due to a "hash collision".
For threading, Agent does not compare message IDs directly.
Agent "hashes" the message IDs to 26-bit numbers and compares
the "hash" numbers. Incorrect threading occurs when two
different message IDs hash to the same number.
A group which contains around 5,800 messages, has a 50%
chance of at least one hash collision.
This problem has been reported for over a decade
http://groups.google.com/groups/search?as_epq=hash+collision&num=30&as_ugroup=alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent
There has even been discussion of a user patch
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.usenet.offline-reader.forte-agent/msg/ed76fba41f7f9f62
--
Regards
Ralph
Albert Ross
wrote:
Ah yes, that be the one! I forgot the details but remembered the
principle.
Loren Pechtel
wrote:
>For threading, Agent does not compare message IDs directly.
>Agent "hashes" the message IDs to 26-bit numbers and compares
>the "hash" numbers. Incorrect threading occurs when two
>different message IDs hash to the same number.
>A group which contains around 5,800 messages, has a 50%
>chance of at least one hash collision.
No wonder there are so many mistakes. 26 bits is *NOT* anything like
enough!
Ralph Fox
Indeed so. And slightly worse.
For message-IDs the hash is *effectively* worth only 25 bits.
Close to half of the 2^26 values will never be used for message-IDs.
--
Regards
Ralph