Dennis Lee Bieber wrote: > On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:47:24 -0700 (PDT), Bearophile > <bearophileh...@lycos.com> declaimed the following in > gmane.comp.python.general: > >> This is a small OT post, sorry. >> >> Dennis Lee Bieber, may I ask why most or all your posts are set to "No- >> Archive"? >> > Taking into account some corrections from the last time I had to > explain... > > I'm from the days when the majority of NNTP servers were configured > to expire posts after some number of days (Netcom used to expire binary > groups after 24 hours! and most others were something like 14 days). > > Then came the precursor to GoogleGroups -- DejaNews -- threatening > to archive posts through eternity. This resulted in a fair amount of > protesting by some, and the creation of the x-no-archive header > convention (Agent even has configuration options such that, if one were > to not normally use x-no-archive such that one's own posts could be > archived, one could still honor it in replies to posts that did contain > it -- so those replies with quoted contents would also not be archived). > > It was at that time that I added the x-no-archive header to my posts > from Agent; as, while not as vocal as others, did object to DejaNews > plans.
But your replies often contain useful information. It's a shame that they disappear from record, making them invisible for anyone searching the archives. A good rule of thumb when judging behaviour is to ask, "What if everyone did this?". If everyone set x-no-archive, then discussions on Usenet would be ephemeral, we couldn't point people to past discussions for information, and we would lose a lot of useful information. (Also a lot of garbage.) I can't tell you how often I find useful information in the archives of comp.lang.python thanks to those who archive the gname news-to-email gateway, and Google groups. If everyone did what you use, the entire community, including myself, would be far worse off. As far as I'm concerned, setting x-no-archive is harmful, anti-social behaviour on a technical newsgroup like this. You (almost) might as well just email the poster you're replying to directly. -- Steven -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list