Re: X-No-Archive, here we go again ;-)

Steve Ackman wrote:

These days most servers don't expire text posts for at least a year or
so. Only google expires them in a week (that I know of).

We all know Google Groups (via Deja News before Google grabbed them)
created this header so they support it. However, that doesn't mean only
Google will honor this header.

Good. That's less chance for groper idiot f'ups.

The pervasive use of this header, from my experience, has been with
those posters that do NOT use Google Groups. It may be the default
configuration of their NNTP client or they edited that configuration to
always use the XNA header (i.e., none of their posts are important to
keep around for longer than a week). Google Groupers are using Google's
webnews-for-dummies interface. They have no choice to add the XNA
header, so it is NOT the Google Groupers that are the ones using this
header. It is the non-Google Groupers using the XNA header.

This is Usenet which traditionally only remained available for 10 days
to a couple weeks... maybe a month at the outside. These days, many
hold them a year or even longer.

Before 1992, and at my university, posts never expired until disk space
got tight but usually that meant scrambling to add another disk. The
"traditional" use of newsgroups didn't involve binaries or even the
volume of boobs that infiltrated Usenet when AOL added newsgroups or
again later when forums added their Usenet gateways.

Also, commercial NNTP services retain articles for a lot longer than 10
days. Even 1 year is short. Giganews, as I recall, keeps them around
for 5 years (for text groups). Usenet evolved beyond the simplistic
forerunner for chat rooms to encompassing the retrieval of historical
information that has become quite valuable in troubleshooting.

This is Usenet. Most servers don't expire the text groups for a good
year or so. Potential respondents will see my post for however long
their servers retain them.

Since few NNTP servers honor the XNA header, someone trying to use it
makes themself look a boob. They are only punching holes in the thread
in the Google Groups copy - yet Google Groups is where many if not most
users will go look for archival copies of a thread.

Only when somone tries to read it from an archive. Usenet isn't an
archive. I only want my posts read on Usenet. Matter of fact, it
used to be that the XNA flag prevented one's post from being seen on
Google at all. I'd sure like that policy to return.

You're screwed. Now the forums are archiving Usenet with their
forum-to-Usenet gateways. When Deja News added support for the XNA
header, I don't recall that it ever blocked Google from peering a copy
of that article. It was due to pressure from privacy fanatics as to why
they added the header; however, I don't recall that it ever meant
immediate removal (i.e., rejection when peering or upon submission) but
always meant the article was eligible for removal from their servers
after some time, like 6 days.

Usenet is for discussion/conversation. In real
life, such things vaporize as soon as the air stops
vibrating. Do you carry a tape recorder around to
record your every phrase as if your great great
grandchildren will hang on your every utterance?

Things change. Lots of information is still valuable from Usenet
discussions, like solving problems with computers, cars, DIY repairs,
and so on. The value of Usenet has surpassed its short-retentivity
babble origin and evolved into a store of useful (and not so useful)
information. Without the archiving into Google Groups, forums, copied
into blogs, etc., just WHERE would *you* look to find a problem that you
cannot resolve yourself? You only want less than a 2-week window to
find out if someone else has discussed the same problem? You want only
the current availability of those who are currently visiting the
newsgroup to respond without any access to that historical information?

Post hoc, ergo prompter hoc
I'll play too. If you don't use your real name, you
must be a spammer, troll, flamer, coward, liar, etc. etc.

I picked a moniker different than my real name because someone had
already been using it in the groups that I visited. I decided to be
polite and pick something else so I used my avatar's name from a gaming
forum. Alas, my first pick also matched on a regular poster that was
around before me so I change it again but then realized that Google
tosses out non-alphanumeric characters in its searches which made
finding my posts difficult so I remove those characters. I'm not
interested in stroking my ego by having to use my given name which isn't
unique. The moniker I have now has been used for a couple of years now
and I will keep it because no one was using it before me. Are you sure
that all of those 1950 posts using "Steve Ackman" is you? If so, you're
luckier than those with more common names.

As to why I don't use a valid e-mail address has to do with not making
an e-mail provider suffer bandwidth for e-mails that I will never read.
If I were to create an e-mail account as some freebie provider, I won't
be reading any e-mail sent there. I keep my discussions in Usenet and
am not rude in taking them offline from the group via e-mail. I keep my
posts in the group(s). I post in Usenet and I keep [my part of] the
discussion there. E-mails sent to the account would never be read and
would probably be immediately deleted by a rule. Why would I impact any
e-mail provider with worthless traffic? You'll notice I use an e-mail
address that won't even afflict a mail server because the domain cannot
exist (if it ever does then I'll have to change my e-mail address to
include the .invalid TLD). If spambots harvest my e-mail address, they
will waste their time trying to connect to a domain that doesn't exist
(as .invalid is automatically excluded by them). Also, the trust model
on which NNTP was built has long expired.

XNA does NOT mean "delete this immediately" but "this post is not of
such earth shattering importance that it needs to be around for
archaeologists to find 4 or 5 millenia down the road. Please let it
die its natural and timely death."

Alas, that is not how it is often used. The user configures their NNTP
client to add the header which occurs for all their posts. They might
provide a solution for a problem for which no one has found an answer.
However, in a week, that solution is gone and anyone else having the
same problem cannot find the solution anymore. The XNA header is *not*
used only for trivial posts. It is often set in the client and remains
that way for all that user's posts.

Guess what. If a question I ask today is answered a year from now...
I almost certainly won't care.

And who cares about your personal choice when you get help from someone
else? That answer may be important to someone else with the same
problem a year from now. Just because YOU got help means no one else
should find the same help on the same problem? Wow, you sure are greedy
and short-sighted. You get your answer but you don't want anyone else
to find the same solution.

They'd have been too late anyway.

Oh, you've never run into an esoteric problem that few people could
provide a solution (and not just suggestion during troubleshooting) that
might take more than 6 days to solve? For those that might have an
answer, what if they aren't around that week? Well, your post
disappears and they won't see it when they do choose to volunteer their
time in the group to provide help. Well, golly, now we get to see you
repost your SAME question the next week because no one happened to be
around the week before.

They is plural.

Warning: This constitutes a sub-topic. Of into a tanget we go.

"They" is also a gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun rather than
use he or she (because their gender isn't known), he/she is clumsy, "it"
is neutral but considered impolite when referring to humans. Other than
"it", there isn't another gender-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun.
Humans don't care for being called an "it".

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary:

They: 2. Often used in reference to a singular noun made universal by
every, any, no, etc., or applicable to either sex (= 'he or she')

Their: 3. Often used in relation to a singular noun or pronoun
denoting a person, after each, every, either, neither, no one,
everyone, etc. Also so used instead of 'his or her', when the gender
is inconclusive or uncertain.

Themselves: 2. In concord with a singular pronoun or noun denoting a
person, in cases where the meaning implies more than one, as when the
noun is qualified by a distributive, or refers to either sex: =
'himself or herself'.

They: 4. In relation to a singular noun or pronoun of undetermined
gender: he or she.

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language:

Singular they (p. 426)

They is commonly used with a singular antecedent, as in Someone has
left their umbrella behind. As such, it fills a gap in the gender
system of the core personal pronouns by virtue of being neutral as to
sex.

(e) Singular they (pp. 493-494)

The use of they with a singular antecedent goes back to the Middle
English, and in spite of criticism since the earliest prescriptive
grammars it has continued to be very common in informal style. In
recent years it has gained greater acceptance in other styles as the
use of purportedly sex-neutral he has declined. It is particularly
common with such antecedents as everyone, someone, no one; indeed its
use in examples like No one felt that they had been misled is so
widespread that it can probably be regarded as stylistically neutral.
Somewhat more restricted is its use with antecedents containing common
nouns as head…The view taken here is that they, like you, can be
either plural or singular.

One is singular.
... people you refer to as "one?"

Maybe they would have been the only one with the
expertise to help you.

Doesn't parse any better this time around.

Return to college and take a linguistics course. Archaic English
grammer only provides a simplistic foundation for teaching writing
skills. Even Middle English recognized the need for a gender-neutral
3rd person pronoun.

What do YOU propose for use as an elegant and non-contrived word(s) for
a gender-neutral 3rd person pronoun?

"They don't see your post so they don't respond."
or
"One doesn't see your post so one doesn't respond."

Oh yeah, that 2nd example is so fluid ... not! I've found more
opposition to using "he" as a gender-neutral 3rd person pronoun than
when using "they". It is also infers the lack of singularity or
plurality by being indeterminate in number.

I let it die its natural death which might be a week on the evil
archiver, a month on some other server, or a year on some other.

Yes, we know you are greedy. Once you get an answer, you could care
less about someone else finding the same help for the same problem.

I have hidden nothing from anyone.

Then why use the XNA header at all?

It is people who choose to use google groups who limit
their own view of Usenet.

Again, it isn't just Google Groups that supports the XNA header.
However, Google Groups is the most used archival source for resolving
problems (i.e., finding solutions to the same or similar troubles).

Huh? My responses will be available as long as the
question is. On Usenet. I post to Usenet, not Google.

And Google also uses NNTP servers (not available to use but how it
peers). As with Google Groups, Giganews, or any other NNTP service,
*you* don't get to determine their retention. So why bother trying to
alter it with the XNA header? As you admit, few NNTP servers honor it
so it makes the poster look stupid in using it. For Google Groups,
which is a primary archival source, it means the poster *is* trying to
hide their post after a week despite it may contain info that is helpful
to someone else. But then we know you aren't interested in helping
anyone else.

15 years ago I was using Net-Tamer on DOS. Nobody
could care less today about any answers I gave or
received concerning that newsreader. Nobody will give
a *** 15 years hence about Dialog either. Why archive
it?

Oh, you think there is no one out there that is still using an old
8-inch Pelican drive? Or has an Altair? Or coding in Fortran or
Pascal? Or no one uses MS/IBM-DOS anymore? Or is still using a
joystick connected to a joystick controller card? Or no one owns a car
that is over a decade old, or more?

Besides, I'm not sure why you decided to extrapolate the value of
archived information from just 6 days to 15 years. You think a problem
on Windows XP/Vista, Ubuntu, Redhat, SuSE, Word, OpenOffice, or whatever
occurs only within a 1-week window? You think that users of Dialog
don't want to find out question about regex or where to find custom
scripts to modify its behavior that were asked over a month ago? Yes,
we know you're greedy. A discussion by you is just for you and no one
should be looking at it once you have decided to abandon it.

I did preface my reply as my personal rant about the use of the XNA
header. So your opinions differ from mine but then your purpose for
using Usenet is probably different than mine. I don't spend time in the
political, scientology, religious, kook, or other non-technical groups.
The scope of my Usenet usage (based on the limited groups where I lurk
or participate) does effect a bias on my rant. In all the groups that I
visit (except maybe 24hoursupport.helpdesk), the discussions are about
getting help - and those discussions, including their resolutions, are
NOT irrelevant after a week.

So far, I do not filter out XNA posts but I do alert on them. If that
poster is in a discussion regarding someone asking or giving help, and
if it is the XNA poster that provides the solution or even much relevant
information, then (if I remember) I'll quote more of their post so that
their information sticks around longer. If they didn't (er, if one
doesn't) want to help more than just that one person, they (er, one)
should take the discussion offline via e-mail and disconnect everyone
else now and later from the solution.
.

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