On Thu, 21 Aug 2003 10:26:46 +0000, Splat! wrote:

Not wanting to annoy anybody,
and not understanding what you were talking about. I contacted a few
computer Guru's who helped to explain your previous message :

" Because many servers segregate groups based on whether they allow
images or other binaries to be posted there. This is a text-only group
and does not want to be relegated to the shorter retentions and other
handling issues it would have if it were designated as a binary group. "

They all found it somewhat amusing,
but like me, were not sure if you were trying to be a smart ass, or just
anal.

My friends were much more helpful,
and explained your concerns to me as such :

A lot of people who read newsgroups messages, do it over a slow modem.
These people find pictures and other ' binaries ', frustrating when
downloading messages from a newsgroup, because it makes the downloading
time much longer. Although there is no rule against posting messages with
' binaries ', it is a courtesy to these people if you post the picture, or
such, on a website,
and then post the URL to the website in your message on the newsgroup.

HEY !
I can understand that !
and genuinely sympathize with the slow modem problem. If posting the
picture on a website, instead of the newsgroup, helps a lot of people out.
No problem !

But you E-mailing me at home, and asking me not to post picture on the
newsgroup,
with no explanation, ( like your the webmaster or something ), and then
when I did ask why, to posted what you did. Expect a ' non - random '
negative response, or two.

Enough said on the subject,
the skies are blue,
I'm outta here,
Phil.

In simpler terms, Ron said that postings from newsgroups that typically
have binaries aren't archived very long on news servers. Take a look at how
far back your news server has postings from rec.aviation.homebuilt vs how
far back it has postings from alt.binaries.pictures.aviation. My news
server has rec.aviation.homebuilt messages going back into July.
alt.binaries.pictures.aviation only goes back to August 18th.

I expect that most people prefer that their server has RAH messages that
go back as long as possible. If people make a habit of posting binaries
we risk having our servers start only keeping a few days of messages.
--
Kevin Horton
Ottawa