Binary group retention rates?
Steve Jacobs
concert I'd attended 3 weeks ago had been posted to a binaries newsgroup,
in case I was interested.
Now, FIRSTLY, I don't mean to start a thread debating the merits of
bootlegs or music downloads, so if this question is improper here, I'll
let it drop.
Still reading ? Great!
Last night I found the first few pieces of the post seemed to have already
dropped off the list. It's been a long time since I used Usenet, though,
so I'm not certain the problem wasn't with my client, as opposed to the
server.
What's the retention process for binary newsgroups provided via SE? Is it
a time basis, or number of posts? (I.e., only 2000 subject headers are
maintained, or all is maintained for 1 week, or something else?)
Thanks,
Steve
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Duncan
excerpted below, on Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:33:44 -0400:
> concert I'd attended 3 weeks ago had been posted to a binaries newsgroup,
> Last night I found the first few pieces of the post seemed to have
> already dropped off the list. It's been a long time since I used Usenet,
> though, so I'm not certain the problem wasn't with my client, as opposed
> to the server.
>
> What's the retention process for binary newsgroups provided via SE? Is
> it a time basis, or number of posts? (I.e., only 2000 subject headers
> are maintained, or all is maintained for 1 week, or something else?)
SE outsources their news thru giganews, a dedicated news provider which
has pretty decent reliability. I'm no longer an SE customer, nor am I a
giganew customer, so I can't check current retention, but standard policy
would have news divided into text, single-part binaries, and multi-part
binaries, each on a separate spool, with text having the longest retention
at >6 months, multi-part binaries having the shortest at perhaps
a couple weeks minimum, maybe a month max, and single-part binaries
having a retention somewhere in the middle, perhaps a couple months.
Typically, it's circular queue space based retention, per spool. They only
expire content in ordered to make room for more, then expire the oldest on
the spool, regardless of what group it's in.
Now you mention when the concert was, three weeks ago, but not when the
post was. However, if it was shortly after, it's possible parts were
already expiring, assuming it was to a multi-part binary spool group.
What were the other posts' dates looking like? If few were older, you
could have caught the tail end. If there were quite a few greater than
about three days older than your posts, it might have been your client or
something.
Were you able to get the nzb file? If so (and your client supports
d/ling from newsbin file), sometimes you can download from it by post ID
after the overviews (headers) have expired, depending on the provider and
what they are running for server software.
Also, if you hurry, you may be able to find it on other servers still.
You could try the 3-day for 3-buck trial that's not uncommon. Note that
some have a web interface as well, allowing you to download via http
instead of nntp.
Hopefully a current SE user will be able to give you better specifics, but
that's the general thing. Three weeks... some of the servers could well
still have it.
--
Duncan - Newsgroup replies preferred. See x-munging headers for mail.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman