bukys@rochester.UUCP (Liudvikas Bukys) (02/06/85)
> ... and not all of it is due to the massive postings of maps and sources ...
As someone who is tired of having my /usr/spool fill too many times in
the last few weeks, I must disagree. All of a sudden, too many
individuals are posting BIG packages, many of which are available by
other means. Font disks, RFCs, huge games, huge packages, repostings
of huge games, more repostings of huge games. Not only that, in many
cases these things are posted all at once, almost guaranteed to
overflow a disk and result in numerous reposting requests. Then there
is the fact that more binary files are being posted than ever before.
The growth in other groups has been steady and probably too large too.
But the profligate behaviour in the source groups is really too much.
What are the problems? Too many people perceive net posting to be
"free". There is a decreasing consensus as to what an appropriate big
posting is. (Someday you'll want to stop paying phone bills for
megabytes of 6502 code for other peoples' washing machines and toaster
ovens.) There is no civilized way to get lost articles. ETC.
What is the short term solution? Peer pressure, I guess.
RULES: --> think before you post, don't post if it's available by
other means, don't post more than one piece a day <--.
What is the long term solution? a system for distributing
information about which uucp neighbors have which packages available
for file transfer.
What's really going to happen? Some day, "!net.sources" will appear in
lots of sys files... For now, if anyone's listening, people will be
more restrained for a while, there will be a lull, and we'll go through
this again in 6 months or so.
---
The situation is critical, and you super-posters and potential
super-posters should take note; the credit for the imminent collapse is
yours. This means you!
---
Liudvikas Bukys
rochester!bukys (uucp) via allegra, decvax, seismo
bukys@rochester (arpa)