gnus: Canceling and Superseding
3.5.4 Canceling Articles
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Have you ever written something, and then decided that you really,
really, really wish you hadn’t posted that?
Well, you can’t cancel mail, but you can cancel posts.
Find the article you wish to cancel (you can only cancel your own
articles, so don’t try any funny stuff). Then press ‘C’ or ‘S c’
(‘gnus-summary-cancel-article’). Your article will be canceled—machines
all over the world will be deleting your article. This command uses the
process/prefix convention (
Process/Prefix).
Be aware, however, that not all sites honor cancels, so your article
may live on here and there, while most sites will delete the article in
question.
Gnus will use the “current” select method when canceling. If you
want to use the standard posting method, use the ‘a’ symbolic prefix
(Symbolic Prefixes).
Gnus ensures that only you can cancel your own messages using a
‘Cancel-Lock’ header (Canceling News (message)Canceling News.).
If you discover that you have made some mistakes and want to do some
corrections, you can post a “superseding” article that will replace your
original article.
Go to the original article and press ‘S s’
(‘gnus-summary-supersede-article’). You will be put in a buffer where
you can edit the article all you want before sending it off the usual
way.
The same goes for superseding as for canceling, only more so: Some
sites do not honor superseding. On those sites, it will appear that you
have posted almost the same article twice.
If you have just posted the article, and change your mind right away,
there is a trick you can use to cancel/supersede the article without
waiting for the article to appear on your site first. You simply return
to the post buffer (which is called ‘*sent ...*’). There you will find
the article you just posted, with all the headers intact. Change the
‘Message-ID’ header to a ‘Cancel’ or ‘Supersedes’ header by substituting
one of those words for the word ‘Message-ID’. Then just press ‘C-c C-c’
to send the article as you would do normally. The previous article will
be canceled/superseded.
Just remember, kids: There is no ’c’ in ’supersede’.
Info Catalog
gnus: Summary Message Commands
gnus: Reply Followup and Post