🚀 go-pugleaf

In dc.config, "David H. Rothman" <rothman@clark.net> writes:
>Someone has suggested the name dc.alexandria. I understand the logic. Makes
>lots of sense. We could go this way if need be.
>
>But I myself prefer simply alexandria.news. Reasons:
>
>1. The newsgroup should be as local as possible. I'd like the proper
>precedent sent here. If, say, folks in Bethesda or Oxon Hill want their own
>newsgroup, well, they could do the same. Somehow "alexandria.news" sounds
>like a friendly local newspaper (though of course a newsgroup is no
>newspaper substitute!). Ditto for bethesda.news and so on.

The only problem is that it's not practical to make a top-level news 
hierarchy like that.  I mean, how many other Alexandrias are there in the 
_world_?  You may find yourself swapping messages with people in Greece.  
Look what happened with the "il.*" hierarchy - IL = Illinois, and IL = 
Israel.  It makes for rather confused reading sometimes :)

>2. Distribition would be local.

Unfortunately, many (most?) ISPs don't honor the distribution header.  
This is not accidental - they are set up to serve customers all across 
the world (in some cases).  They don't know if you're telnetting in from 
New Jersey or Helsinki.  "Local" is a relative term.

>A compromise could be something like alexandria.va.news, va.alexandria, or
>alexandria.va. That would at least preserve the Va. identity.

Actually, the "proper" name would be something like 
"us.state.va.alexandria.news".  Remember: the US != Usenet.  It's a world 
wide system.  There is a us.* hierarchy, though unfortunately it's not 
propagated very well.

David