For watching the offline newsgroup discussions it appears
that most people prefer to scan headers then download only
the messages that look interesting. I tried it for awhile
but noticed it was taking me longer to read news and i
started missing segments of discussion where the subjects
did not match the contents. It got pretty frustrating.
I think if you closely follow a group and plan to read
most messages then scanning the headers just slows things
down. On the other hand, if you are only interested in
a few segments of a group then the header scan is useful.
Anyway, here is a list of reasons to use YARN with newsgroups:
1. The download can be done automatically and does not
take "person" time.
2. I look at a header and body at the same time and either
read or discard. This may use more computer time but
is the minimum use of my time.
3. The headers alone is not enough to decide if a post
is interesting.
4. I don't have to worry about resyncing local header
storage or having the reader try to connect if a
message body is missing.
5. The reading process is totally offline and i can't be
distracted while reading headers and end up stuck
online.
6. If i delete a message it is gone. I can set it up
for automatic deletion of anything read. No headers
lurk around to confuse things (this was not a problem
with all newsreaders).
----
jeff owens, jko@xprt.net, http://www.teleport.com/~kowens
underground house, solar power, self-reliance, edible landscape
eco lifestyle discussions: subscribe ecopath -> majordomo@csf.colorado.edu