Newsgroup Postings

[Big Jim]

I notice ,as i'm sure you have, that in the binaries groups, that often
many of the posts are still listed ,but when you try to download them they
are missing! Is this a fuction of the Newsgroup Provider,or some person
that oversees the group? In other words, retention aside, are their
providers who have less posts missing, of if its missing on Astroweb, would
it be missing on XS News? I'm talking about relitively new posts? Also as
an aside, what are the posts of long symbols and numbers about? Private
postings? Thanks!

[j***@sdalkf.com]

Post by Big Jim
I notice ,as i'm sure you have, that in the binaries groups, that often
many of the posts are still listed ,but when you try to download them they
are missing! Is this a fuction of the Newsgroup Provider,or some person
that oversees the group? In other words, retention aside, are their
providers who have less posts missing, of if its missing on Astroweb, would
it be missing on XS News? I'm talking about relitively new posts? Also as
an aside, what are the posts of long symbols and numbers about? Private
postings? Thanks!

The headers can remain long after the retention period for the post
has expired. Different providers have different retention time.
So, when you click on the Subject header it such a case it turns up
empty with no body. In my Agent newsreader I get red x showing the
post has expired.

It's simply a matter of retention time. Binaries have a much, much
shorter retention period than do groups consisting only of text
files. I can retrieve text files which are about 10 years old, yet
binary files disappear in less than a year, or even much sooner.

I use Astraweb.com and Newsgroupdirect.com as my providers.

As for the symbols and number file names, I don't know. I've also
asked about that and gotten no answer. For some reason the posters
are obscuring the content of those posts. They might not all be
music files. Who knows what they are.

[j***@sdalkf.com]

Post by j***@sdalkf.com

Post by Big Jim
I notice ,as i'm sure you have, that in the binaries groups, that often
many of the posts are still listed ,but when you try to download them they
are missing! Is this a fuction of the Newsgroup Provider,or some person
that oversees the group? In other words, retention aside, are their
providers who have less posts missing, of if its missing on Astroweb, would
it be missing on XS News? I'm talking about relitively new posts? Also as
an aside, what are the posts of long symbols and numbers about? Private
postings? Thanks!

The headers can remain long after the retention period for the post
has expired. Different providers have different retention time.
So, when you click on the Subject header it such a case it turns up
empty with no body. In my Agent newsreader I get red x showing the
post has expired.
It's simply a matter of retention time. Binaries have a much, much
shorter retention period than do groups consisting only of text
files. I can retrieve text files which are about 10 years old, yet
binary files disappear in less than a year, or even much sooner.
I use Astraweb.com and Newsgroupdirect.com as my providers.
As for the symbols and number file names, I don't know. I've also
asked about that and gotten no answer. For some reason the posters
are obscuring the content of those posts. They might not all be
music files. Who knows what they are.

I didn't pay much attention to the subject of binary retention until
your question. I think it also depends on how popular and busy the
group is. Some groups, as I said, do not even have a year of
retention, and yet another less popular group, specifically,
alt.binaries.sounds.1950s.mp3, has files in it that were posted in
March of 2009. I downloaded bodies from there with no problem. It
all depends on the groups popularity and how much disk space the
provider is willing to buy to hold how many months/years of posts.

I'm sure someone more tech savvy could give a better explanation,
but I think I'm basically correct in my assumption.

[sittingduck]

Post by j***@sdalkf.com
It's simply a matter of retention time. Binaries have a much, much
shorter retention period than do groups consisting only of text
files. I can retrieve text files which are about 10 years old, yet
binary files disappear in less than a year, or even much sooner.
I use Astraweb.com and Newsgroupdirect.com as my providers.

There are many providers that offer nearly 4,000 days retention time for
binaries. Newsgroupdirect has 1100 days retention. If you're seeing less than
that using Astraweb (reseller of HW Media) you are not using your client
correctly, since they have 3,000 days retention.

[freemont]

Post by Big Jim
I notice ,as i'm sure you have, that in the binaries groups, that often

[...]

The headers can remain long after the retention period for the post has
expired. Different providers have different retention time. So, when
you click on the Subject header it such a case it turns up empty with
no body. In my Agent newsreader I get red x showing the post has
expired.
It's simply a matter of retention time. Binaries have a much, much
shorter retention period than do groups consisting only of text files.
I can retrieve text files which are about 10 years old, yet binary files
disappear in less than a year, or even much sooner.

This is correct; as newer content is pushed up to the news server, older
content is pushed out. There's only so much storage.

I use Astraweb.com and Newsgroupdirect.com as my providers.
As for the symbols and number file names, I don't know. I've also asked
about that and gotten no answer. For some reason the posters are
obscuring the content of those posts. They might not all be music
files. Who knows what they are.

The nonsensical subjects are for obfuscation. The posters don't want to
display the true name of the content they're sharing because the RIAA or
similar can demand that the news host remove it - and possibly threaten
the host with copyright violation, etc. And with nzb indexing sites that
figure out what everything really is, it's not necessary to use accurate
naming, anyway. It's a good thing. ;-)