henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (10/18/85)
As might be expected, there's been quite a bit of mail in response to word of
the impending cutbacks. I've generally sent individual replies, but thought
that the audience at large might be interested in my answers to some specific
questions people ask.
Q. What about more effective cost-sharing?
A. What about it? Can you find four or five local sites that are willing to
take 1/N share (N == number of sites) with *NO* upper limit? Most of our
current cost-sharing partners set upper limits, which is sensible for them
because 1/N of the bill is almost always larger than said upper limits. Note
that utzoo absorbs the rest, which means that *we* are taking >1/N share with
no upper limit except that set by our management's patience... which we are
dangerously close to exceeding.
Q. Can we arrange individual contributions to keep net.xxx alive?
A. Can you arrange enough of them? What do we do if contributions fall short?
Cut off the group? How in the world do we administer such a thing? Note that
I do not personally object to *having* the "doomed" groups, just to paying Long
Distance bills for them. If somebody else wants to bring them in from outside,
I'm willing (for now, at least) to redistribute them locally. Caveat: other
site administrators may not share my views on this; the recent newsgroup cuts
at utcs were motivated by other considerations.
Q. Could some wealthier Toronto-area site take over utzoo's role?
A. Any volunteers? [long silence] I thought not.
Q. I'll buy cutting net.xxx, but can we save the net.xxx.yyy subgroup, which
is relatively small and maybe more relevant?
A. Maybe. It is possible to get a subgroup without getting the parent group,
but it is cumbersome. There is also the unpleasant possibility that traffic
from the parent group will migrate into the child. I may be willing to make
the effort to save some subgroups, but I'm not making any blanket promises.
Q. What about X.25 or some other cheaper transmission path?
A. Name one that doesn't require any extra investment for equipment. As at
many other sites, at utzoo Usenet is implemented using equipment whose official
primary purpose is other things. Perhaps I could manage an equipment purchase
specifically for Usenet if it was going to solve the problems permanently --
but most of the proposed alternatives are very temporary indeed, at the current
growth rate. Again, if *you* feel like buying the stuff, fine by me.
Q. How about lobbying for government financial support?
A. Sounds interesting; go ahead. If I thought it was going to be easy and was
reasonably assured of success, I would probably participate. In fact I think
it would be a lot of work and would almost certainly end in failure, and there
aren't enough hours in my day as it is. I admit to a mild case of "volunteer
burnout": I have been changing Usenet's diapers for four years now, and I'm
a bit tired of it.
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry