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Newsgroup Posts & Internet Black Holes
September 27, 2010
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NewsAdmin Staff Writer
 You're
sitting down to dinner with friends and family when the
conversation at the table turns to politics. Everyone gets a
chance to share their views on the topic, and as the
discussion bounces between guests you begin to formulate a
thought of your own that you'd like to share with the table.
You lean forward, expecting to impress everyone with a
compelling political commentary, but nothing happens. Your
hands are gesturing, your lips are moving, but not a single
word is heard. You attempt to raise your voice but not a
single person at the table is able to hear a word that you
say. Frustrated, you slump back into your chair, gnaw on a
cold dinner roll, and watch helplessly as everyone but
yourself enjoys an opportunity to share their opinions.
If you've ever experienced a problem posting to the
newsgroups, you may be able to relate to the person who was
unable to participate in the dinner conversation. You may
have run across a question in a newsgroup that you wanted to
answer, a suggestion you wanted to share, a debate that you
wanted to join, but when you clicked the "Post Now" button
your message disappeared into an Internet black hole. While
it lacks the excitement of the black hole theory, the
following list offers some common explanations for
disappearing posts.
Propagation
The Usenet community is a network of 20,000+ independent
news servers, and those servers attempt to exchange content
with one another through reciprocal newsfeeds. As an
example, if a message is posted through Server A
(originating server) it will be feed to Servers B, C and D
so that end users on those servers can see your post.
Similarly, if you use Server D your posts will be feed to
Servers A, B and C. It's impossible for a Usenet provider to
maintain 20,000 direct newsfeeds, but they'll typically
establish direct relationships with a group of servers that
allow them to retrieve content from other servers second or
third hand. As an example if Server A exchanges feeds with
Servers B, C and D and if Server E establishes a feed with
Server A, they'll generally receive Server B, C and D's
content without having to maintain a direct feed with any of
those servers.
While this complex distribution system of primary and
secondary feeds is surprisingly reliable and efficient, it's
not a perfect beast. As an example you might make a post to
your favorite newsgroup, but later hear from friends that
your post never made it to their news server, creating a
situation where some people are able to read your messages
and others are not. In these instances the distribution or
propagation of your post has usually been disrupted by one
of the following...
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The server you are posting through (originating
server) experienced a performance problem, which
either delayed or prevented the distribution of
your post.
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Your originating server does not maintain an
adequate number of newsfeed relationships, so
your posts are distributed to a limited number
of news servers.
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Your friend is accessing the newsgroups through
a news server that is supported by a small
number of newsfeeds, and they're unable to
acquire content posted through other servers.
Empty Message Body
The Usenet community has guidelines that dictate the basic
format for a post, and if a message violates one of those
guidelines there's a good chance it will be rejected by one
or more news servers. As an example you'll occasionally see
folks post a brief question or comment within a "Subject"
line instead of placing their content in the "Message Body"
area. A post with a blank message body will rarely make it
to a person's originating server, and if it does, it will
typically be rejected by other news servers that receive the
post through the newsfeeds.
Excessive Crossposting
When posting to Usenet, you may find that your message is
applicable to more than one newsgroup. Though it's okay to
send your message to multiple groups (cross-posting), it's
important to follow some standard Usenet etiquette when
doing so. When it comes to cross-posting the "less is more"
concept applies... rather than justify how your post might
loosely apply to 30 newsgroups, narrow down your list so
that it only contains the most applicable groups. As a
general rule of thumb we suggest cross-posting to no more
than 3 newsgroups as most Usenet providers enforce some type
of limit on their news servers that can range anywhere from
3-10 groups. If you overlook these limits, your post may
reach your originating server, but will be rejected on
outside servers.
Binary & Text Content
Some text newsgroups may accept and encourage occasional
binary posts (photos, video or audio files), but it's
generally considered poor Usenet etiquette to post binary
content into a newsgroup intended for text discussions. Each
news server is different when it comes to handling misposted
binary content. Some servers will automatically delete
binary content, others permit it within specific text
newsgroups, and some allow the practice. If you find
yourself posting binary files to text specific groups, and
wondering why your posts aren't reaching your originating
server or outside servers, this could be why.
Moderators
Within the list of 70,000+ newsgroups you'll find that some
forums are controlled by a moderator. With this arrangement
a person is responsible for moderating the content that
folks post to a newsgroup, and they ultimately decide which
posts are approved or rejected. Moderated groups typically
have a specific criteria that has to be met before a post is
approved, so it's important to understand those guidelines
before you begin to post. If your message does not appear
within a moderated group, you can typically contact the
moderator(s) to determine why it was rejected. In the event
that a moderator is approving your posts but your messages
are not showing up within the newsgroups, you may be posting
through a news server that has outdated information within
their moderator file. This file routes posted content to the
appropriate newsgroup moderators, so if those details are
incorrect, the moderators may not receive your posts.
Spam
"Spam" is usually defined as unsolicited commercial
messages, posts that are blatantly off-topic within a
specific newsgroup, or excessive reposting of
identical/similar messages. This type of content serves no
useful purposes, and these posts will be deleted by news
servers without question or delay.
Future Dating
On occasion people may adjust the time stamp of their posts
to a future date, so that their messages will appear at the
top of a newsgroup's message list for an extended period of
time. In some instances a person's computer or newsreader
clock may be wrong, and they're unintentionally posting
messages with an incorrect time stamp. As an example today's
date may be 9/27/10, but a person is
intentionally/unintentionally posting messages that are
dated 10/15/10. Regardless of the circumstances, most news
servers will automatically delete posts that arrive with a
forward or future time stamp. If their systems don't pick-up
the error automatically, they'll manually delete these posts
when brought to their attention.
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