Re: [Pan-users] choosing news server

[walt]

David Kelly wrote:
> ...I don't always have access to all
> servers all the time. As a result pan spends a lot of time trying to
> connect to a server which is not available.

I agree that there are both pluses and minuses to aggregating
servers.  I'm not at all sure yet that I like it, but I'm trying
to keep an open mind.

> Manually adding/ removing
> this server seems problematic as I know the primary server is missing
> articles which can be found on the slower fallback server. But if I
> delete the fallback server how does pan deal with the header cache? Does
> it matter if I don't intend to download those articles?

These are reasonable questions.  I'm assuming that the answers are
not trivial, which may be why Charles hasn't yet implemented the
'delete server' function.  I'd also like to see a 'suspend' or
'vacation' check-box for each server so that deleting/reinstalling
a server would be unnecessary.

I think that the introduction of group-specific preferences will
go a long way toward solving some of the problems introduced by
server aggregation.  e.g. if I know that my ISP's server has
pathetic retention in binaries groups, I could just remove my
ISP's server from any binary groups I subscribe to.

Patience will be required ;o)