Re: How does your server handle rmgroup control messages?

Hi Tristan,

The Big-8 Management Board has posted an RFD to remove 99 disused moderated groups [1].  One of the points raised in the discussion is whether removing these groups might irretrievably destroy their contents, which could hinder people doing (historical) research.  The Board is therefore seeking information from server administrators concerning their article retention and archiving policies for deleted groups.

This is always the same debate as soon as we speak about removing newsgroups from a canonic list of newsgroups (checkgroups).
There had been a mass removal in 2011 (and also earlier) in the Big-Eight.  Does it appear to currently be a problem?
If a news server is intended to be a Usenet archival server, then naturally it does not honour any removal of newsgroups and does not expire any article.  So they won't be affected by the removals.
Otherwise, well, it can have whatever policy as it does not aim at being used for historical research.
My two cents,
--
Julien ÉLIE
« Il ne faut jamais pleurer d'avoir perdu la lune car les larmes
   empêchent de voir les étoiles. »