[Pan-users] Re: Can Pan move a whole thread?

[Duncan]

beartooth posted <address@hidden>, excerpted
below,  on Sun, 08 May 2005 17:34:48 -0400:

> Can anything? Move (or copy it) it from one group to another, I mean?
> Should it?
> 
> Case in point: There is now a thread (called New Security Feature) in
> opera.general (from news.opera.no) about a malfunction that might could
> deserve some attention -- and it has taken six posts for at least one of
> the posters to notice such minor details as my .sig or my explicit
> statement that I don't do Windows. So *now* he acknowledges that the
> remedy he advocated is only for Windows, and suggests I take the whole
> thing to opera.linux.
> 
> Can I, or should I even, somehow make it easy for any interested reader on
> opera.linux to follow the whole thing without jumping groups -- without
> wasting an hour or two on tedious diddly-work copying and pasting?

You can't properly "move" a thread, no.  You can cross-post a reply, so
that it either appears in both groups, or is sent to a group other than
which it started in, but except for what's quoted in that post, you aren't
going to get any of the "upline" context.  To cross-post, simply put a
comma after the newsgroup name and type the other group as well (no space
between, only the comma).  You'd then set the FUP2 (follow-up-to, on PAN's
more headers page) to the second group (only) to have all the replies go
there.  Or... just "forward" the post, by deleting the first group name
and putting in the second.

Do note that in any case, you should include a short explanation of what
you are doing and why.  Something like:

[X-posted to <group1> and <group2>, fup2 set to <group2>.]

or

[Forwarded to this group from <group1> on recommendation of <person>.]

PAN will warn about x-posting, don't know about group forwarding, but as
long as you aren't abusing the practice and make it clear in the text that
you are x-posting/setting-fup2/forwarding/whatever, to avoid any
confusion, and anybody getting their replies sent where they didn't intend
because they didn't look, it's fine.  Generally, x-posted messages should
have fup2 set to one of the groups, and mention that as well.

One of the reasons a thread can't be moved, is that you'd be moving posts
of other people, not just your own.  That's not a nice thing to do, as
they may want their posts left where they are.  Note that for your own
posts, there's the cancel and supersede functions.  I'm not sure they'll
let you switch groups, however, and even if they do, many news servers
by policy ignore those, because it's too easy for someone else to "fake"
being you and cancel your post, or supersede it with stuff /they/ want to
make it look like you said.  Even if your local news server honors
cancels, if it had propagated to other servers before it was canceled,
they may or may not honor the cancel once it comes thru, even if the
server you use does.  Therefore, it's always a good idea to make sure you
want to post what you are posting before you send it, as in effect, the
cancel and supersede functions probably won't work -- the message is
already out there as it was originally sent.  (FWIW, cancels and
supersedes work by posting the new message or the cancel in a special
"control" group, which is common to all groups on the server.  Many news
providers will provide this group as is, even if they don't honor it,
simply propagating the messages thru, allowing others to use their own
policy.  What this means is that it's actually very easy for someone to
track the control group, and see what someone wanted to change or cancel,
then go look up the original post to see what made them change their mind.)

...

So, you are left to either forward the conversation as is, or resummarize
it as best you can...

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman in
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/12/22/rms_interview.html