Subject: Posting letters

From: George Pearce <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 18:55:10 -0600

Hi;
  I recently posted a letter about a backhoe I built, and have had some
replies. I am new to groups on the net and was wondering how long a
letter stays on the net, because mine was only there for about a day. 
                               Thanks,
                                    G.P.

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From: [email-masked] (Dion Hollenbeck)
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 1996 15:19:45 GMT

>> George Pearce writes:

GP> I recently posted a letter about a backhoe I built, and have had
GP> some replies. I am new to groups on the net and was wondering how
GP> long a letter stays on the net, because mine was only there for
GP> about a day.

A little Internet lesson is in order.  News postings are never stored
"on the net" as such.  They travel out from your site to other sites
over the net and *every* site stores a *copy* on a physical disk on
their site (unless they get their news from someone else, in which
case the provider is the only one who stores it).  So you sent your
question out, it gets stored on the disk at my company.  How long it
stays depends solely on my company, how much disk space we have and
how many newsgroups we get which fill up the disk space how quickly.

Your posting disappeared from whoever your news provider's site is in
a day.  I would venture to guess that it will remain on *my* site for
at least a month.  The fact that it disappeared from your site in a
day has no bearing on how long other people will be able to read it
and in fact, because news has to make hops down a tree structure to
reach most sites, chances are good that if your provider has a 1 day
expire, people elsewhere out in cyberspace will receive your posting
loooong after it has disappeared from your site.

Also, depending on the particular newsgroup, there are sites which
are designated archives for certain groups and keep the postings for
years. 

dion
-- 
Dion Hollenbeck (619)597-7080x164                 Email: [email-masked]
Sr. Software Engineer - Vigra Div. of Visicom Labs  San Diego, California

---

From: George Edwards <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 21 Sep 1996 17:38:17 -0500

> letter stays on the net, because mine was only there for about a day.
Other folks have explained that your specific provider determines how
long the news posting is "available" and that this is dependent on the
size of their specific newsgroup dedicated disc space.

Also, the Browser program you are using and/or the Newreader will often
determine how many times you will automatically see postings.  I use
Netscape and I have set up preferences so that unless I other wise
specify, I never see postings after I have read them once.  They are
still around....I just don't see them.  After reading today's postings,
I will "mark the newsgroup read" so I don't continue to see the same
articles over and over.

George

---

From: Walter Preg <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 22 Sep 1996 10:49:44 GMT

George, could it be possible that you did the same mistake like me when
I was new to net / news? I just got displayed the *unread* news by
my newsreader. I read a news and the next time I logged in the news
had disappeared. After some days fortunately I found the "show all msg./
only unread msg" switch in the "options" menu.
How long a news exists depends probably on your provider. I experienced
something from 1 to 4 weeks. Though if a provider don't do his job well
(internet is a very new media to many provider, too) also some problems
might happen (newsgroups disappear, no fresh news ...).
BTW, regarding that matters there are better newsgroups than r.c.m.
Regards, Walter