Patent ID: 7490148

Claim:
A method for assessing completion performance of a newsgroup service provided by a newsgroup server whereby the newsgroup server provides an on-line forum for users of an Internet Service Provider (ISP), the on-line forum having a plurality of interest groups such that one or more users of the ISP post newsgroup articles that are maintained by the newsgroup server on behalf of the ISP and at least one newsgroup article is transferred to a newsreader of a user, the method comprising: selecting a newsgroup topic as a subject of a newsgroup completion assessment to be used in evaluating a newsgroup server and quality of newsgroup service being provided by the newsgroup server to a service provider; determining a current rate of completion of the newsgroup topic on the newsgroup server, the current rate of completion indicating a percentage of the total number of multipart newsgroup articles that have been delivered and stored on the newsgroup server with all of their sub-parts for the newsgroup topic such that a user may access all of the sub-parts and subsequently reassemble the sub-parts into a complete newsgroup article; comparing the current rate of completion to a minimum completion limit and assigning a completion grade; and saving the result of the newsgroup completion assessment so that the assessment of the newsgroup server may be subsequently conveyed to an interested party.