shannon%datsun@Sun.COM (Bill Shannon) (10/07/87)
Recently I've been getting lots of articles in newsgroups that don't exist locally. Did I perhaps miss a bunch of newgroup messages? Here's just a small sample: comp.ai.neural-nets 3 comp.editors 73 comp.edu.composition 24 comp.lang.icon 3 comp.lang.postscript 13 comp.lang.scheme 3 comp.periphs.printers 1 comp.protocols.iso 1 comp.sys.dec.micro 5 comp.sys.encore 3 comp.sys.ibm 1 comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt 1 comp.sys.sgi 1 comp.sys.transputer 1 comp.sys.xerox 1 comp.sys.zenith 1 comp.sys.zenith.z100 1 comp.theory 2 comp.theory.cell-automata 1 Are these legitimate groups or not? None of the checkgroups messages I've gotten have complained about them being missing. (Maybe I've missed some discussion because I don't read most of these administrative newsgroups - too much flaming, bitching, and moaning and not enough content. I depend on the software to manage itself for the most part.) Bill Shannon
david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack) (10/08/87)
Those newsgroups are all in the "inet" distribution. "inet" started
as being for those sites which are on the Internet... they all match
up with a mailing list which is in the List of Lists. We are intending
to replace "mailing list technology" with "newsgroup technology" by
weight of numbers.
What is happening is that Erik Fair is making subscriptions to all of
the mailing lists he finds out about, and have the subscription end
up posting an article to some newsgroup with Distribution: inet in
the article. The newsgroups are also placed in the normal newsgroup
hierarchy to "reduce confusion". But there's currently no easy way
for people at sites which receive the inet distribution to tell that
a particular newsgroup is IN the inet distribution. So, new postings
at sites have "world" distribution, or maybe "na" or "usa" or some
such. These new postings go everywhere, even to sites who don't get
the inet distribution.
Nowadays these newsgroups go to more places that those who are are
on the Internet. And there's no problem with that either ... Also
I suppose that if there is general interest then we could convert
some of these newsgroups to normal newsgroups.
Oh, the "we" of the people handling the "inet" distribution are those
Scurvey Members of the Internet Backbone Cabal. (I really did see
somebody refer to us in those kind of terms ..). If you're on the
internet and want to do NNTP, send mail to nntp-managers-request
at ucbarpa.berkeley.edu ...
--
<---- David Herron, Local E-Mail Hack, david@ms.uky.edu, david@ms.uky.csnet
<---- {rutgers,uunet,cbosgd}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET
<---- I thought that time was this neat invention that kept everything
<---- from happening at once. Why doesn't this work in practice?kyle@xanth.UUCP (Kyle Jones) (10/08/87)
In article <30206@sun.uucp>, shannon%datsun@Sun.COM (Bill Shannon) writes: > Recently I've been getting lots of articles in newsgroups that > don't exist locally. Did I perhaps miss a bunch of newgroup > messages? Here's just a small sample: > > comp.ai.neural-nets 3 > comp.editors 73 > comp.edu.composition 24 > ... > Are these legitimate groups or not? Here we go again. I ask again: Can these groups be excised from the "official" USENET tree? Putting the inet groups under comp, sci, rec etc. has thoroughly confused users and programs alike. Why aren't the "inet" groups is distributed in the same manner as the alt groups? kyle jones <kyle@odu.edu> old dominion university, norfolk, va usa
fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) (10/09/87)
Followup-To: In the referenced article, kyle@xanth.UUCP (Kyle Jones) writes: >Here we go again. I ask again: Can these groups be excised from the >"official" USENET tree? Putting the inet groups under comp, sci, rec >etc. has thoroughly confused users and programs alike. Why aren't the >"inet" groups is distributed in the same manner as the alt groups? The inet distribution has newsgroups in the USENET namespace because I decided to do it that way (after a month's worth of consultation with the members of the NNTP-Managers mailing list). I was fully aware at the time that the distribution would leak when people using netnews post new items (stuff gatewayed from the mailing lists always gets the "inet" distribution added, and people replying to the gatewayed material get the inet distribution copied into their reply header) because the netnews software has a somewhat limited idea of what ought to be the default distribution of a newsgroup (just the top-level name; there ought to be yet-another-field in the active file for this). The first cut goal of the "inet" distribution is to make mailing lists on the ARPA Internet unnecessary (because the traffic they carry is carried by netnews). It makes life much easier for the moderators and for the postmasters at the various institutions that participate, because there are fewer strange addresses to track down, and users can come and go without bothering anyone to add/delete them from some central list. The second goal is to unify communities of interest on the different networks (ARPA Internet, BITNET, UUCP network, etc.). We have a mostly workable newsgroup hierarchy on USENET, I decided to use it. So, the bottom line: Do these newsgroups exist? Yes, within the "inet" distribution. Can you get the "inet" distribution? Yes, find a site that already has it (most sites on the ARPA Internet do) and ask them to feed it to you. I don't care whether you're on the Internet or not. Europe, for example, is getting the "inet" distribution. Can we fix the leaks? Two possibilities: 1. fix netnews 2. make these newsgroups "official" I hope this clears things up. Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu
webber@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber) (10/09/87)
In article <2687@xanth.UUCP>, kyle@xanth.UUCP (Kyle Jones) writes: > Here we go again. I ask again: Can these groups be excised from the > "official" USENET tree? Putting the inet groups under comp, sci, rec > etc. has thoroughly confused users and programs alike. Why aren't the > "inet" groups is distributed in the same manner as the alt groups? It didn't confuse users or programs. Who it did confuse were system administrators. If they had just said ``what the heck'' and created the groups locally, they wouldn't be having the problems they have now. The last great renaming was totally ludicrous, but at least there was method in the madness, i.e., set up a turn-of-the-century library cataloging system for newsgroups. Creating a bunch of side groups like alt, bionet, ca, ru, org, etc., totally undermines that and wastes all the suffering that the survivors of the last renaming endured. NEVER AGAIN. There is no one on this net that knows enough about what they are doing to justify changing the name of a group once it has been created! ------- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!webber)
emc@Unicus.COM (Eric M. Carroll) (10/10/87)
david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack) writes: > What is happening is that Erik Fair is making subscriptions to all of > the mailing lists he finds out about, and have the subscription end > up posting an article to some newsgroup with Distribution: inet in > the article. ... Also > I suppose that if there is general interest then we could convert > some of these newsgroups to normal newsgroups. > > Oh, the "we" of the people handling the "inet" distribution are those > Scurvey Members of the Internet Backbone Cabal. Could the "Internet Backbone Cabal" perhaps comment on why those inet groups are not going to the whole net? I know that what we do is subscribe to lists of interest with a mail gateway alias that posts them to local groups. If this is already being done on a less add-hoc basis, perhaps the entire List Of Lists could be gatewayed into Usenet. Then maybe we could finally swamp those digest-mongering interneters :-) -- Eric Carroll Unicus Corporation, Toronto Ont. Eric.M.Carroll@Unicus.COM (Internet) {uunet!mnetor, utzoo!utgpu!utcsri}!unicus!emc (dumb UUCP) mnetor!unicus!emc@uunet.UU.NET (dumb ARPA)