From: betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz)
Newsgroups: gnu.gnusenet.config,news.admin.misc
Subject: Re: Should 'gnu' be a valid distribution?
Date: 25 Jan 93 23:13:59 GMT
Organization: University of Massachusetts at Boston

Gnu's newsreader will select a default distribution that matches the 
top-level group hierarchy. I asked about this here a few weeks ago,
and then asked on  gnu.emacs.gnus, and got the following patch.
   This is probably rampant in gnu newsgroup because of the high
percentage of posters using gnus. I include the entire patch
here because it is small:
-------------

From dsg@blackbird.mitre.org Fri Jan 15 16:36:49 1993
To: betsys@cs.umb.edu (Elizabeth Schwartz)
Subject: Re: Help changing default distributions.
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 93 09:22:47 EST
From: Dave Goldberg <dsg@blackbird.mitre.org>


This patch was posted to the one of the gnu.emacs.* groups a while
back (by, I think, sdb@ssr.com (Scott Ballantyne)).  It prompts for a
distribution, happily leaving it blank (I think most posting software
defaults this to world) if nothing is given.
[...]

-=============== PATCH FOR 3.14 ================-
diff -c orig/gnuspost.el new/gnuspost.el
*** orig/gnuspost.el	Sat May 18 10:30:43 1991
--- new/gnuspost.el	Fri Feb 28 16:29:55 1992
***************
*** 32,37 ****
--- 32,44 ----
  (autoload 'news-reply-mode "rnewspost")
  (autoload 'timezone-make-date-arpa-standard "timezone")
  
+ ;; Adjust this list for your local distributions. These are ok for the
+ ;; usa, local areas might want to add their own (like nj, ny, ne, ca, etc).
+ 
+ (defvar gnus-distributions-assoc
+   '(("world" 1) ("na" 2) ("usa" 3) ("local" 4))
+   "*Valid distributions for your location")
+ 	
  ;;; Post news commands of GNUS Group Mode and Subject Mode
  
  (defun gnus-Group-post-news ()
***************
*** 171,187 ****
  					   newsgroups ;Default newsgroup.
  					   )))
  		(setq subject (read-string "Subject: "))
! 		(setq distribution
! 		      (substring newsgroups 0 (string-match "\\." newsgroups)))
! 		(if (string-equal distribution newsgroups)
! 		    ;; Newsgroup may be general or control. In this
! 		    ;; case, use default distribution.
! 		    (setq distribution gnus-default-distribution))
  		(setq distribution
! 		      (read-string "Distribution: " distribution))
! 		;; An empty string is ok to ignore gnus-default-distribution.
! 		;;(if (string-equal distribution "")
! 		;;    (setq distribution nil))
  		))
  	  (news-setup () subject () newsgroups artbuf)
  	  ;; Make sure the article is posted by GNUS.
--- 178,189 ----
  					   newsgroups ;Default newsgroup.
  					   )))
  		(setq subject (read-string "Subject: "))
! 		;; Bug fix by sdb%hotmomma@uunet.uu.net
! 		;; Don't set distribution field to heirarchy name.
! 		;; prevents much flames and mail.
  		(setq distribution
! 		      (completing-read "Distribution: " gnus-distributions-assoc
! 				       nil nil))
  		))
  	  (news-setup () subject () newsgroups artbuf)
  	  ;; Make sure the article is posted by GNUS.




--
System Administrator                  Internet: betsys@cs.umb.edu
MACS Dept, UMass/Boston               Phone   : 617-287-6448
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