Re: messages deleted

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <Edina1996Sep30.161002.25705@island.idirect.com.compulink.com>,
Sid Stulberg <misty@idirect.com> wrote:
>I have been shocked to discover that my messages and replies have been
>deleted from this newsgroup.

   Tip: in usenet, there are 3 kinds of "deletions" of messages:

1) Normal article expiry. Given that Usenet is in the 200MB-1GB per
day range, there's not enough space to keep around every newsgroup
back to their creation unless you're someone with a LOT of disk space
like www.dejanews.com. Thus, after a _LOCALLY_ specified (by the news
admin; this can range from 12 hours to weeks) amount of time, articles
are deleted off your local news server.

   This happens to everyone's posts pretty much everywhere; it's a
fact of usenet life. Talk to your news admin for details on what the
expire time for comp.sys.apple2 is on your site. If you feel strongly
about keeping around old articles, then go to www.dejanews.com and look
them up, or invest in the disk space needed to keep around however many
articles you want.

2) Voluntary cancels. Most newsreaders (well, those with a feature list
containing more than 'GUI') let you voluntarily delete messages at will.

3) Involuntary cancels, done by someone else. This can happen if you
post binary files to a newsgroup not for binary files. (Tip: binaries
must appear in the name). This is generally accepted because
newsgroups were formed to contain a certain set of messages, and if
binaries are not included in that set, they are inappropriate.

   There's also the rogue involuntary cancels, such as happened a bit
over a week ago now. Drop by news.admin.net-abuse.misc for details on
the hunt for these people; they will be dealt with when caught.

---

   Given that you said your messages and your replies, I'd think
you've been caught by #1. It's not censorship when _everyone's_ posts,
_regardless of content_ are deleted from the local news server some
constant period of time after posting. It happens to everyone, and
since it's a fact of usenet life, it's nothing personal.

>Please answer these questions immediately and to my complete satisfaction
>or I will be moved to take this problem to the proper authorities.

   Sure, but you shoulda talked to the news admins of your ISP first;
they'll probably have given you the exact same rundown as I just did.
If it's a case of #1, normal expiry, the technical term for your
recourse is basically "Deal with it." Usenet's operated that way from
the start, and it's not going to change anytime soon unless gigabyte
drives cost pennies. [And when that happens, the average message
will contain tons of video and audio, so they'll fill a gig each :]

Nathan Mates

--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  -R.A. Heinlein