Mailing list announcement

[Scott Hazen Mueller]

In article <1061 at bakerst.UUCP> kathy at bakerst.UUCP (Kathy Vincent) writes:
>sending news as mail to people who couldn't otherwise get directly
>connected ...   In other words, that's always been a possibility.

Of course it has been possible.  I'm doing it, aren't I?  *You* never
mentioned, even though you were obviously aware of it.

>What further purpose does "gatewaying" (that nasty nonverb again)
>the groups into comp.sys.att serve? 

*If* the readership is high enough, it is less costly to the transport links
(read "the Usenet backbone") to send news than to send a mailing list.

>And I have yet to understand what gatewaying (...) does that cross-posting
>doesn't.  Someone, please explain that to me.  In public - maybe I'm not
>the only one who doesn't understand it.

1)  A gateway does not require all sites that generate material receive
boths groups.  Unless there's something in the News software that I'm not
familiar with, it's not possible to cross-post into a group that your site
does not receive.  That applies to unix-pc-only sites as well as Usenet-only
sites.

2)  A gateway is *automatic*.  It puts no requirements on posters to make
intelligent choices.  And it has been shown time and again through the
experience of the Usenet that posters by and large *don't* make intelligent
choices; hence, the large numbers of article followups that appear in
inappropriate groups because the topic changed but the Newsgroups line didn't.

>Kathy Vincent ------>  {ihnp4|mtune|codas|ptsfa}!bakerst!kathy
>              ------>  {ihnp4|mtune|burl}!wrcola!kathy
>              ------>  { favourite AT&T gateway }!wruxe!unix
-- 
Scott Hazen Mueller   scott at zorch.UU.NET
(408) 245-9461        (pyramid|tolerant|uunet)!zorch!scott