🚀 go-pugleaf

ranfry@mala.proteus.qc.ca (Ranfry) writes:

> Look will you people shut up!  I have TOLD you what is needed, forget the 

which is: an offline reader for Usenet - right?

> suggestion of using Waffle, it just wont do.  Never mind the real benefits
> of doing so, BBS users DONT want to do so, end of story.  If you people are
> too stupid to get the point, drop out of this conversation.  Yes, Waffle
> is superior to using a QWK system, but most users, those used to BBSing,

the issue is not that waffle is superior - the issue is that QWK is
_incapable_% of handling the format used by Usenet since before QWK was
invented.  the only way people are using QWK at all with Usenet stuff
is to have special QWK readers which understand Usenet-headers-as-text-
at-the-top-of-the-file or to just send out mangled stuff.  the problems
with the latter are obvious; the problems with the former are the lack
of Usenet-aware QWK readers out there (are there any that do a good job?
are they any at all?) and even if there are five, what's to say your
users are using one?  they can just whine that they want to use the
one they already have installed.

% - incapable in general.  you can force Usenet-awareness onto any reader
you have source for, but then it's incompatible (in some ways) with the
rest of the QWK world.

> don't want to set up a Waffle system, no matter how easy it is.

over and over again, people say: right now, that's just your only option.
Rhys is working on a new offline format for Usenet - do you think he'd have
had to do that (and have people like me debate him in mail about it) if
a (non-uucp/rnews/rmail) solution already existed?

> Except that you analogy is NOT valid.  The cost is NOT the same at all, plus

> how to use another one.  It would be like making every driver get their
> own ferry boat, rather than providing one for all.

can we kill the analogies now, please?  otherwise I'll think one up that
mentions trying to put new wine in old bags.  or is that a gallon of water
in a pint jar?  it'd be a show-stopper - you have been warned :-)

just because you want QWK and Usenet to work together doesn't mean they
have to.  people saying something unpleasant over and over and over again
can sometimes give you a clue that the world isn't yet perfect, or that
the problem you have can't be solved within the specifications you lay out.
-- 
Russell Schulz  russell@alpha3.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca  ersys!rschulz  Shad 86c