In message , 98 Guy writes:
"J. P. Gilliver (John)" wrote:

I have NEVER EVER heard of anyone having a usenet client check
for new posts on a timed schedule the same way an email client
checks for new mail. That is absolutely crazy.

No, it's how a lot of people do it (and a feature of many news clients).
You _may_ have highlighted a reason not to do it with _some_ news
servers.

So how do _you_ get usenet posts?
[]
AIOE is one of the listed NNTP servers. I open it by clicking the "+"
beside it (expanding the tree-view). All the newsgroups that I've
subscribed to for AIOE are then listed under it, and Communicator begins
the process of checking for the current message-count in each group and
comparing it to the last/previous count, and if they're different, that
indicates there are new messages in those groups and the number of new
messages is printed beside each group. At this point, Communicator
doesn't actually go out and get any message headers for any groups.

(Do you mean it doesn't get message _bodies_? Surely in order to check
"the current message-count" it needs headers. Or are you going on some
sort of serial number that the server puts on each message?)

Now, if I notice that one of the groups actually has new messages, I
will click on that group (in the left-pane) and a list of the most
recent posts is displayed in the top-pane on the right side. They can
be displayed in a linear list (according to time-stamp) or sorted by
Subject, Author, or tree-view (by subject) depending on the settings I
last used for that group. New posts have their subject-lines indicted
by bold-print.

All that is fairly standard for newsreaders. (I think most people use a
threaded view - not _quite_ by subject, as you _can_ have two or more
threads with the same subject.)

I click on any given post in the top pane, and the post is displayed in
the lower pane. It's a lot like reading e-mail.

(Obviously at some point your news client has downloaded the bodies of
the posts as well as the headers - or maybe it's doing so as you get to
them.) What you describe is fairly normal for newsreaders, too. (_I_
used to use Netscape for news too, at work, many years ago; from what I
remember it was a good news client.)

If I click to a new group, all posts in the current group are treated as
"old" even if I haven't viewed all of the new posts. If I click between

(That would drive me nuts, but each to his own. It might even be an
optional setting.)

groups, the new-message-count is updated when I return to the previous
group.

If I "roll-up" the NNTP server that I currently have open, and then
expand it again, the new-message-count is updated for each group.

So, basically, _you_ trigger a fetch of new posts (or at least a new
count), by - in one of at least two ways - going out of and then coming
back in to a 'group.

Unlike the SMTP (email) setting for the time interval to check for new
mail, Communicator has no such setting for the NNTP (usenet) server -
and rightly so in my opinion. Because for usenet, you can pretty much
garantee that if you follow a dozen or so groups, not more than a minute
or two will go by before one of them will have a new post, so there's no
real point of checking for new posts on a timed basis - especially if
you leave your news-reader client open and walk away from your computer.

That is your opinion, to which you're entitled. Others might prefer, if
they leave their newsreader open - looking at a newsgroup - and walk
away, for it to show any new posts that have arrived in that 'group by
the time they come back, without them having to do anything. Again, each
to his own.

So I can see how anyone using a news client that performs scheduled
polling of the NNTP server for new messages could end up breaking one of
the rules on the AIOE server limiting how many sessions any given IP can
have during a 24-hour period. I realize that now because I didn't know

Of course, we're making assumptions about what constitutes a "session"
here; unless someone quotes something unambiguous from the AIOE Ts and
Cs (if it is even clarified there), we won't know one way or another.

that there are usenet clients that perform scheduled polling for new

I didn't know there were news servers that limit by number of sessions;
I'd heard of limits on number of _posts_, and on total _size_ of posts.
You live and learn!

messages (because, as I explained above, I don't see a valid use-case
for such a "feature").

Well, I've given one; I now know there are at least three of us still
here, so maybe ... (-:
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

There's nothing wrong with looking at cake. - Sarah Millican, Radio Times
10-16 December 2011