On Fri, 6 Aug 1993 17:26:09 +0200 Eric Thomas said:
>On Thu, 5 Aug 1993 20:17:55 -0400 Chris Lewis <[log in to unmask]>
>said:
>
>>That incident was indeed a finger problem  on my part, but it still begs
>>the question of  whether a LISTSERV should ever bounce  a duplicate back
>>at a USENET-origin posting. (...) But don't do this until Eric fixes the
>>bounce-usenet postings problem.
>
>Are we  speaking the  same language?  I thought we  had already  made the
>point  that  LISTSERV can't  know  that  the  message came  from  usenet.
>Therefore there is not going to be  a "fix" to this "problem".
>
>This ridiculous discussion has been going  on for too long and people are
>starting to sign off.  This will be my last message on  the topic. I will
>not "fix"  your problem because  I cannot  identify usenet postings  in a
>reliable way.  If in the  future it becomes  possible to identify  them I
>will reconsider.  Until this  becomes possible you  are just  wasting the
>time of the 500-1000 people reading this list. End of discussion.
I've had a similar reaction as Eric, and was about to send off a
flame of similar proportions, but then I thought a little more,
and I'm not sure we are discussing the correct problem.  The problem
under discussion has been where to bounce FAQ duplicates.  After
listening to much of this, including why FAQs are posted to USENET
frequently, I'm not sure that the answer shouldn't be how to get FAQs
through.  If it is important to get them through on USENET, why
not on a MLM?  The problem occurs because the size of the dup
check table is the same as the daily-threshold.  If the dup
check table could be a smaller size, then for a FAQ list, it could
cranked down to either 1(never allow the same message twice in a row)
or 0(don't check for dups)  I understand why it has been tied to
daily-threshold, but maybe the time has come for it to default to
daily-threshold, but allow it to be set by a parameter.
>
>  Eric
/ahw