tmoody@sjuvax.UUCP (T. Moody) (11/07/85)
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Not everybody has the time, patience, or masochistic energy to read
net.news, so I thought I'd leave this note. Evidently the costs of
maintaining USENET are rising to the point where sites are
contemplating scrapping certain newsgroups, to cut down the volume of
message traffic, and thus save money.
Net.philosophy is a fairly high volume newsgroup, so it is usually
targeted as one of the groups that should get the axe. The technical
newsgroups are seen as the raison d'etre of USENET, and groups such as
net.philosophy (variously characterized as "soapbox" and "noise"
groups) are seen as a threat.
At least one site -- in Texas -- has already begun deleting newsgoups.
It is reasonable to expect that others will follow suit. For those
who are interested in preserving net.philosophy in some form or other,
there are several options: (1) turn it into a mailing list. (2) turn
it into a moderated newsgroup. (3) support the idea of imposing
(through the software) limits and quotas pertaining to how much an
individual can post, say, per week. And I'm sure that there are other
options that have not occurred to me.
I have only been on the net for a few months, but I value my
interactions in this medium. It would be a shame to lose it. If you
don't want to clutter net.philosophy with discussion about this, I'll
be happy to summarize the upshot of anything that might get mailed to
me.
Todd Moody | {allegra|astrovax|bpa|burdvax}!sjuvax!tmoody
Philosophy Department |
St. Joseph's U. | "I couldn't fail to
Philadelphia, PA 19131 | disagree with you less."