NEWSGROUP Message Postings Question

"Robert" wrote in news:dIKdnfSzkN1DHwPdRVn- snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

The answer is.... it depends.

What it depends on is your Usenet providor's policies. For most people, that is their ISP, but many people use specialized Usenet providors, and one of the reasons is that they typically have better article retention.

If you want to know for sure, ask your ISP/providor. The answer may be different for different groups, and/or different heirarchies. For example, many ISPs have lower retention(in the order of days/hours) for "binary" newgroups, and higher retention(weeks/months) for 'text only' newsgroups. They may also retain groups in, for example, the sci heirarchy longer than those in the alt heirarchy. Furthermore, it's possible the retention is "dynamic", in that it may be based on the storage requirements.

For many groups, including this one, if you want to read 'older' articles, either because you missed them, or because you want to research is a question that has already been asked and answered(like your question ;-) you can use Google Groups:

That depends upon your newsserver and how much room they have to retain messages. Some retain messages for months, others just for weeks, and still others only for days.

My dialup ISP has 6428 messages in this nissan group that go back to 7/20/03 My Roadrunner account has only 164 messages in this same group going back to 5/3/04

Well, I found under Tools - Options - Maintenance (Delete News Messages (#) days after being downloaded).

I recently switched over to Comcast Cable Internet and Installed WIN XP Pro - although I use Outlook for Email - I have to Use Outlook Express for News Groups.

I was noticing that my News Group messages only go back 5 days. Looks like the default was set at 5 days under the Maintenance Section as noted above. I unchecked that Section. I'll see what happens over the next few days - or I might have to ask Comcast how they handle News Groups - storing messages.

Thanks all for the Input. I'll keep in mind.

Robert

this worked -- I have not lost any messages since I unchecked that box (reference below if needed)

Well, I found under Tools - Options - Maintenance (Delete News Messages (#)

Depends on ISP retention policy as others have stated. May have a few days policy (3-5) on binary groups and up to months on text groups. I can see stuff in text groups back to Feb on Demon but badly incomplete binary only 10 days back.

Depends on setting of Expires: field in the header on news servers that obey this. This means you make a post on current topic that you don't what discussed next week disappear by setting it to say 7 days.

Depends on setting of X-No-Archive:yes in header to prevent things like Google groups from keeping it on file for public access forever! (for text groups like this one - they don't store binary)

-- Peter Hill Spamtrap reply domain as per NNTP-Posting-Host in header Can of worms - what every fisherman wants. Can of worms - what every PC owner gets!