CompuServe Messages

Jim, If you read Larry's message to mean that we are proposing to convert everything to PAK format, Larry either phrased it ambigiously, or you misread it, or both. PAK is a nice format in that no external utility (like ARC) is needed to extract files. That's it's good point. The downside is that PAK files are normally 10%-50% larger than the same files compressed with ARC. The question is, since PAK compression is less efficient than ARC compression with the obvious side effect of increasing download times, should we (sysops) allow PAK files in the DLs or convert them to ARC files and reupload (except where specifically forbidden, as in the case of PLAY.PAK) ? Does the convenience of PAK's extraction overcome it's lack in compression? Personally, I'd rather limit PAK files and stay with ARC until and if something else comes along that is more effecient than ARC (and hopefully upward compatible with it). But, this is _your_ forum, what do _you_ want the policy to be?