🚀 go-pugleaf

Why haven't I put remote cancellation into notes? Here are a few
reasons.

@ Once the data arrives on my machine, it's my property and I don't
want some random Joe on the other side of the network to zip those
babies away. Particularly if it's something I want to forward to 
my archive machine.

@ remote cancellation leads to the following scenario, which is also
  why notes doesn't let you delete a note or response if there are
  later notes in the discussion:
	1. person A writes a note
	2. person B writes a well-thought-out, rational, coherent response.
	3. person C writes a really stupid response
	4. person D writes a response that says "the previous response
	   is really stupid".
	5. person C goes back and deletes his response
	6. Person D now looks like a bozo for (apparently) saying
	   that person B's response was really stupid.

Steps 5 & 6 are avoided by not letting you delete a note/response if
there are later responses in that string. The situation gets more
complex if you let people do remote cancellation.

@ Since the notes networking is passive in the sense that it doesn't
	happen the instant you write an article but later when a
	daemon comes around to package all the new articles (which
	looks a lot like what batching, doesn't it!) the user
	typically has a reasonable window to decide that he didn't
	really like what he wrote and he can edit the text.
	All of a sudden, you don't need remote cancellation, the
	reason you wanted to cancel the article has been taken care
	of in a purely local manner.

Anyway, those are some of the reasons that I didn't implement 
remote cancellation of notes. It opens a number of problems with
consistency, you can get people screaming about the information
on their machine belonging to them, and the way I implemented 
notesfile networking you almost always have a chance to correct
it before it gets sent out over the network.

-- Ray Essick, University of Illinois
-- ihnp4!uiucdcs!essick  essick%uiuc.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa

Even if remote cancellation is not allowed, you can still get into
trouble if anyone expects references like "the previous response",
"note 7 in net.garbage", etc. to mean anything.  Example:

	A writes a note.
	B writes an idiotic response.
	C and D start writing responses complaining about B's response,
	but referring to it only as "the previous response".  

	Whichever of C or D finishes his note last will probably look like
	an idiot.  

The time windows for such things get even wider if you assume that C and D
are on different machines.  Then it is likely that C and D both look like
idiots on the other's machine, but sensible on their own.

Also, how about:

	A writes a note.
	B writes a nasty response, referring to A's note as "note 7".
	The nightly nfarchive is done, and B's note is now note 7.

	Everyone thinks B is an idiot for fighting with himself, and losing.


Ray, I think I agree with most of your reasons for not having remote
cancellation.  But I think your examples stretched the point a bit too far.


				Gordon Burditt
				convex!ctvax!trsvax!sneaky!gordon
				microsoft!trsvax!sneaky!gordon