Re: Updating definition of "bogus" groups?

[Russ Allbery <eagle@eyrie.org>]

Emanuel Berg <incal@dataswamp.org> writes:
> Russ Allbery wrote:

>> I've never been clear on what this function does that I would want to
>> do and why it's bound to a key. I've only run it when I pressed b by
>> mistake, and it's never done anything. I may just be not using the part
>> of Gnus where it would be useful?

> The docstring says "Remove bogus newsgroups." which, granted, sounds
> pretty useful.

Historically on Usenet that means newsgroups that were deleted, so I
assume that's what it was intended to mean.

> But then I wonder, how do they enter the *Group* buffer in the first
> place?

Well, if it's just groups that were deleted, one either was subscribed to
them or for whatever reason had them listed and unsubscribed.

In other news readers historically, it was common to keep a newsrc that
included every group on the server whether one was subscribed or not.  In
that context, checking for bogus groups was looking for groups that you
have listed in your newsrc (possibly unsubscribed) that no longer exist.

I guess Gnus could have the same problem?  It definitely doesn't with my
settings, but I know there are a bunch of settings.

-- 
Russ Allbery (eagle@eyrie.org)             <https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>