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Wed, 4 Aug 1993 18:27:07 +0200 |
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Message of Wed,
4 Aug 1993 01:35:07 -0400 from "Forum on LISTSERV release 1.7"
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On Wed, 4 Aug 1993 01:35:07 -0400 Chris Lewis <[log in to unmask]>
said:
>5) As a stopgap kludge, FAQ writers can diddle the contents of their
> articles every time they send it if there are no other changes. But
> this is solving the wrong problem. The article is a duplicate.
> It is supposed to be.
It is a duplicate in the sense that the contents are the same. But it is
NOT a computer-induced copy of the same human-induced posting. In usenet
terms, it hasn't got the same message ID. You send the FAQ every month,
explicitly, for a very good reason: you want it distributed so that new
subscribers can pick up useful information and ask less novice questions.
It would be incorrect to quietly trash the FAQ on the basis that it was
already posted one month ago. You need the kludge for the FAQ because,
unlike normal messages, you explicitly acknowledge the fact that the FAQ
doesn't change every month but should be redistributed every month
anyway, for the benefit of new subscribers or people who wiped out their
hard disk or whatever. This could be implemented by adding a header field
with 'Post-Anyway: TRUE', but things being as they are there is no
guarantee this header won't be swallowed somewhere on the way between you
and the mailing list, so it isn't a workable solution. The simplest and
safest solution is to time-stamp the body of your FAQ's. This also gives
users the opportunity to know when they can expect a new FAQ. For the
reasons I mentioned above, the RFC822 'Date:' field is pretty much
meaningless - it can have been updated or inserted anywhere along the
line.
Eric
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