X-Message-Number: 1117
From: Kevin Q. Brown
Subject: Mailing List and sci.cryonics Cross-Posting 
Date: 10 Aug 1992


Here is how I currently do the cross-posting between the
cryonics mailing list and USENET sci.cryonics news group.

Some, but not all, sci.cryonics messages get forwarded to the
cryonics mailing list.  Unless someone calls my attention to
important and/or interesting messages that I missed, I do not
forward messages in threads matched by my "kill" file or
messages that do not appear to me to be of interest to many
people on the mailing list.

Also, I forward many, but not all, cryonics mailing list
messages to sci.cryonics.  Certainly I do not forward
administrivia messages, such as this one.  Nor do I forward
messages that the poster requests not to be forwarded to
sci.cryonics.  Copyrighted materials, which (I think) can
be distributed legally to a private mailing list under the
"fair use" clause of copyright law, should not go to USENET.
Furthermore, some mailing list messages, such as minutes of
local cryonics group meetings, really seem to be mailing
list material, but not USENET material, and generally do not
get distributed to the world on sci.cryonics.  (I have
attempted to use local USENET distribution (NY, NJ, BA)
for some meeting announcements, though.)  I do not have a
good algorithm for determining which local meeting messages
go to sci.cryonics and which do not, so consider it random.
If you want your local meeting minutes forwarded to
sci.cryonics, then please let me know.  Of course, even if I
get obstinate about something, you can always send your message
to sci.cryonics yourself, or enlist a friend to do it.

People who receive both the cryonics mailing list messages
and sci.cryonics messages see the cross-posted messages twice.
To avoid this duplication, my best solution for now is:

  (1) put "" in your "kill" file for
      sci.cryonics and
  (2) write a script to remove or ignore any cryonics mailing list
      messages with "Newsgroups: sci.cryonics" in their header.

One disadvantage of step (1) above is that if I post something to
sci.cryonics that does NOT get posted to the cryonics mailing list,
then you will never see it.  (This won't happen often, though.)

Another approach is to create yet another cryonics mailing list
for those people who receive sci.cryonics, too, and post to that
list only those messages that never show up on sci.cryonics.
Since the forwarding from the cryonics mailing list to sci.cryonics
is not well automated, though, this creates more administrative
overhead for me and I am not yet ready to tackle it.  For now,
probably steps (1) and (2) are best.  Perhaps someone else has a
better solution?
                              Kevin Q. Brown
                              UUCP        ...att!whscad1!kqb
                              INTERNET    
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