Delete news messages

[Jeffrey M. Vinocur]

On Sat, 3 Aug 2002, Ryan Parlee wrote:

> How do I delete messages from my news server as an administrator?  Besides
> simply deleting them from the "./news/spool/articles/" directory.  I would
> like to just be able to open up the news folder in my news reader client,
> press delete, and have the message removed.  Can it be this simple?

Well, your newsreader surely has a "Cancel message" command.  Your server 
is probably honoring cancels (unless you've disable that), in which case 
that would suffice.

Except that many newsreaders try to verify that you originally posted the 
message you're trying to cancel.  Certainly try cancels first; if you 
compiled your newsreader yourself you should be able to disable such a 
feature without much difficulty, otherwise, you might try asking in 
news.software.readers for help (explain why you want to cancel other 
people's messages so nobody gets annoyed about it).

-- 
Jeffrey M. Vinocur
jeff at litech.org