On Fri, 18 Feb 2000 21:20:46 -0800, Ken <tyl### [at] pacbellnet> wrote:

> I passed on your earlier suggestion to Chris but I see some flaws in it
>already. The biggest problem facing this server right now is available
>space. 

I thought you might say that. If there isn't room, then I can live
with losing some of the older posts. In fact, I had already deleted
many of the older posts on my machine anyway. I had the same lack of
space problem myself. I had already moved my favorite attachments to
other directories for safe keeping.

I think that most of us could live with posts that expire after a
year's time. It sure beats typical usenet servers that sometimes
delete posts within the same week.   :)

>I have seen a definate difference in the
>quality of images posted here. While there was some good posts
>in the early days of this server the posts in the last year have
>improved consistantly since that time.

I have been thinking the same thing lately. I remember the images
before POV 2.2 came out. Things have come a very long way since then.
As you say, even in just the last year, there has been remarkable
progress in image quality. The two things creating this are the peer
support that you mention and the continuing improvement of POV-Ray
itself. 

Even the growth of POV-Ray itself has benefitted from the peer support
here, because many of the custom features have been suggested,
created, shared, and improved on here. Without this news server, the
Super Patch and Mega-POV might not have become what they are today.
I'm not forgetting the Official POV, because some of the features in
the Official POV were once found in custom patches, and no doubt, many
of the features in the current Mega-POV, and other patches,  will find
their way into a future Official POV version.

It would be nice to keep this history archived *somewhere*, but I'm
not sure where. Perhaps distributing CD-ROM's with news archives as
someone suggested is a possibility, but even if we don't have an
archive of news, we'll still get along fine. 

I know, because as interesting as the past might be, the best of
POV-Ray is yet to come.


later,
Glen Berry

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