At 04:06 PM 11/20/98 +0100, Carolyn Schaffner wrote:
>One of the subscribers asked:
>
>WHY DO WE NEED AN ARCHIVE???...I WONDER IF THERE IS SOME WAY TO
>COMPRESS IT,
>OR ZIP IT.......LIKE EVERY 3 MONTHS THE SERVICE SQUEEZES IT INTO A TINY
>LITTLE
>FILE....THEN IF ONE WANTS ACCESS THEY CAN DOWNLOAD IT ONTO THERE OWN
>HARDDRIVE.....
>
>****
>
>This message seems to contain a good suggestion.. can anyone give me an
>answer to pass along??
>

My first thought is if your subscriber, or you, wanted to download the
archives and compress them, fine.  If not, don't.  But if you're not
pressed for disk space, why bother?  With the price of disk dropping daily,
I don't see much point in making the archive much less useful to the rest
of the world.  Is there some reason this reader can't download it
him/herself?

My second thought is "who is this clown"?  (not you, your subscriber)
Obviously this person doesn't know any netiquette and also can't spell very
well.  And why is s/he worried about your disk allocation or cost?

My third thought is that if you don't have room to archive and don't want
to store it elsewhere, there is always the delete option.  Most of my lists
are technical, and any information on them from more than a year ago is
obsolete.  So, I tend to keep archives for a short period of time.  If a
topic is worth preserving, or is a set of answers, someone prepares an FAQ
and puts it up on the web somewhere.  Sometimes they even keep it up to date.

cheers

dan

--
Dan Lester, 3577 East Pecan, Boise, ID 83716-7115 USA 208-383-0165
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