On Thursday, August 18, 2011 02:12:58 PM Alain Ketterlin did opine: > gene heskett <ghesk...@wdtv.com> writes: > >> Or save work and find a public nntp server (or setup one, or ask your > >> provider), and use a news reader to follow the list (even thunderbird > >> can do this). No spam, no need to store messages on your machine, > >> auto-purge after a configurable delay, etc. > > > > That is asking the user to take considerable effort and resources to > > do that. What is wrong with the mailing list only approach? > > Nothing really. > > Regarding effort and resources, once you've found a NNTP server there's > very little effort (probably less than subscribing to a mailing list). I > have 4 lines in my .emacs. And this lets me browse dozens of groups (or > thousands if I had time for this). It might not be easy to find a server > which will let you post, but that's because a few years back many > internet providers decided that nntp was too much traffic. I guess it > would now be considered ridiculous compared to the average web-site. > > But I'd like to return the question. What's wrong with nntp?
The sheer volume of traffic eats 99% of an ISP's bandwidth. The last time I checked with one of the local ISP's that I quit using years ago because it was 30 miles away and was then long distance, giving me $300 phone bills, they said their server died (again, and that then traffic was such that a 300GB hard drive was being subject to a posting lifetime of 3 hours because it was filling the drive that quickly. At the time, they had 5 T1 circuits, and NNTP was eating 4 of them. To an ISP, that stuff is found on the ground behind the male of the bovine specie. No ISP I have access to a mail account on, except google, has the resources to maintain a full listing nnpt server. > It looks > like everybody agrees that nntp brings spam. I just wanted to say that's > not true, I use nntp extensively and haven't seen spam for months (I'm > talking about 15-20 groups, not comp.lang.python only). > > The real problem here seems to be google groups, which in some way > forwards spam to the mailing-list. How this happens is beyond my > understanding. But let's try to fix the real problem. I could just nuke them, but I suppose I'd then have to resubscribe to about 10 of my mailing lists through the server this msg comes from. That is gradually happening anyway because posting through a gmail account, you cannot turn off the dup deletions, so one never knows if ones post to a list got there until someone replies, you don't get an echo. I have even tried CCing this address as some have suggested, but that doesn't work either. gmail is NOT the huge thing it was touted to be, not by a hell of a long row of apple trees. > -- Alain. Cheers, gene -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) "It's not just a computer -- it's your ass." -- Cal Keegan -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list