From: V@nguard.LH   
      
   Mike Easter  wrote:   
      
   > VanguardLH wrote:   
   >   
   >> There are Usenet providers from whom you can purchase blocks of   
   >> usage.  If you stay within text-only newsgroups, the blocks will   
   >> last decades.   
   >   
   > It is very hard to compare text group retention across block account   
   > providers.  Typically the comparison sites only cite the /best/   
   > retention for a provider which may be as great as >5000 days for   
   > binaries, but 'unlisted' for the text groups, which are often MUCH less.   
   >   
   > As an example, newsdemon, >5000 binaries, 720 text.   
   >   
   > Except in the case of newsdemon, they publish that tally, whereas most   
   > of them don't.   
      
   For me, if I wanted an archive of over-2-year-old articles that is   
   organized and searchable using a local NNTP client (not using Howard   
   Knight's web-based lookup), I'd run something to save them locally, like   
   Hamster or similar leeching NNTP server/clients.  In my NNTP client, I   
   purge articles over 180 days old for read/unread articles, and only 10   
   days old for articles with empty bodies (empty articles have no value).   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)