Aucbarpa.482
net.news
utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:glickman
Fri Dec 4 00:35:21 1981
Re: Bnews bug?
A modification was made to the gamma distribution of B news that
has confused many people. The primary article selection algorithm
in version A involves the last time you read the news. In B news,
it doesn't matter what time you read the news, just what articles
you read. Most of the time, this works out pretty much the same.
The exception occurs when you skip over an article via '+' or some
such method. Then the article not listed as read in your .newsrc
and the next time you read news, it will be presented to you. Anyhow,
when the -a flag is used in A news, you can see articles you've already
seen since the primary selection criterion is disabled. However, when
you say "readnews -a tuesday" in B news, you will only see articles
received since last tuesday that are still unread. The key is the
-x option: Ignore the .newsrc's info about which articles have already
been read. The -x option in conjunction with the -a option will
probably let you do what you want. This is confusing and has been
suggested that it is a misfeature. I don't think so, but hopefully
I'm open-minded. Let's hear what folks have to say.
Matt
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