Re: gnus makes emacs lose response

[Richard Stallman]

    Start a timer when it tries to open/use the connection.
    If connection is opened/response is received, cancel the timer.
    If timer runs out, close the connection and try again.

If Gnus operations that use the connection always involve small
amounts of data, so that restarting one is never a big loss,
then it is ok to implement this strategy.

By contrast, restarting scp every time a connection drops would be a
real disaster with Wifi (compared with resuming the transfer where it
left off).

If one of these Gnus operations can take a long time, then it is like
the scp case, and we must not make Gnus automatically kill it and
restart!