Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 23:19:55 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Paul Shirley <junk AT defeating DOT email DOT address>
cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: c.o.m.djgpp retro-moderated?
In-Reply-To: <RhExLDAI6zIzEwEf@foobar.co.uk>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970311231919.2704E-100000@is>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


On Sun, 9 Mar 1997, Paul Shirley wrote:

> My question is : if someone asks 'Why is my hello world program is 200K
> long?' is it reasonable to remove the public post and email a response
> instead, provided the message gets through to the newsgroup *some* of
> the time (to head of other requests). For many of the really common FAQs
> this would stop the usual cascade of replies adding to the noise level.

It is reasonable, yes, but unfortunately, at least in my experience,
it doesn't work.  First, news propagation has its delays, which are
different for different parts of the world, so when some people reply
they didn't yet see that somebody else already replied.  Telling
people to wait with a reply a couple of days would do a bad service to
those who ask the questions by postponing their replies: it's better
to get a few replies quickly than one reply later.  Second, quite a few
people who post news have their return address set incorrectly, so
direct email bounces.