In article <4fohuclkuvmu9urtgjt3rgvje8aildb8n1@4ax.com>,
<Moxy@127.0.0.1> wrote:
> My understanding that cross posting was considered evil for two
> reasons;
>
> 1. Users would end up downloading the same article multiple times
> unnecessarily sucking up valuable bandwith on the server and on
> expensive analogue dial up lines.
>
> 2. Storage, this was once a vastly expensive resource.
Sorry, but that's backward. You're thinking of multiposting.
A crossposted article exists only once in the disk storage of each
server, regardless of how many groups it's crossposted to. And a good
newsreader, one that is well designed, will keep track of crossposts
and let you (sometimes as an option that you can switch on or off)
automatically filter out second and subsequent copies so that you only
see one copy even if you read all of the groups it's crossposted to.
A crossposted article has a Newsgroups header that looks like this:
Newsgroups: group1,group2,group3
On the server, all of those three groups have pointers to a *single*
shared copy of the article on disk.
A multiposted article (or "articles" plural, actually) exists as a
number of separate copies on disk, with Newsgroups headers that look
like this:
Newsgroups: group1 [only in copy #1]
Newsgroups: group2 [only in copy #2]
Newsgroups: group3 [only in copy #3]
One reason (completely unrelated to the above) why crossposts have been
considered evil in a lot of groups is that they attract unwanted
attention from outside the group. If group1 is not well known and its
participants like it that way, flying under the radar, then adding
group2 and group3 to a distribution list along with group1 will
implicitly invite participants in those other two groups to learn that
group1 exists, read it, and possibly interfere or troll or spam or
whatever. Most often, the motive for trying to fly under the radar is
to avoid having spambots automatically add the group name to their
lists of groups to spew crap to.
HTH.
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