On 09 Oct 2003, crymad posted the following to rec.food.drink.tea:

In a thread above, I mistakenly called Candie, "Cindy". I
immediately canceled the message and re-sent a corrected one.
Yet, when my wife checked the NG about an hour later on her
computer, the original message still remained. Can someone
explain the mysteries of Usenet message canceling?

Theoretically:

When you send a message to a usenet server, you also have the right
to cancel that message. By sending a cancel command, your original
message will be deleted

Reality:

Usenet messages almost immediately propogate round the globe. Not
every server accepts "cancel" commands and so messages still exist
even after the cancel. Additionally, I've seen cancelled messages
still get indexed in Google's archive. (Granted, you can request
that they be removed, but that's in addition to your cancel
command.)


Basically, if you make a screwup like the one you mentioned, the
better solution is to immediately follow it up with a correction
and apology. This shows that you're aware of your "oops". You never
know. You might cancel the message and have it disappear from your
server and yet it may still show up on Candie's.

It would be nice if it worked automatically around the globe, but
it doesn't.

Derek

--

It's not "free" speech when I have to pay for the privilege
of listening to a message that I don't want to hear.