[news.admin] Great Lakes news backbone

emv@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (06/17/88)

I would post this to the regional groups of the areas this 
concerns, but there's not an easy way to do that; apologies
for the world distribution.

I'm soliciting comments on the organization of a usenet
news backbone for the Midwest.  I have in mind (more
or less) the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan,
Indiana, Ohio, and parts of Pennsylvania and New York,
as well as the province of Ontario.

If you're in one of these places, and this article came
to you via the west coast or through New Jersey, let's
talk about shortening up the path between here and there.

--Ed
Edward Vielmetti, usenet news admin, U of Michigan mail group

emv@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (06/27/88)

In article <537@mailrus.cc.umich.edu> emv@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) writes:
>
>I'm soliciting comments on the organization of a usenet
>news backbone for the Midwest.  I have in mind (more
>or less) the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan,
>Indiana, Ohio, and parts of Pennsylvania and New York,
>as well as the province of Ontario.

I thank the several news administrators who sent me mail
regarding this posting.  It appears as though there's as
much co-operation in the area as I expected, and I 
anticipate that this effort to increase connectivity 
throughout the Midwest will prove generally useful.

From looking at logs here, it appears that the usenet
"backbone" has several unintended members.  Taking a look
just at the articles appearing at this nntp-only site from
uunet shows that most of them come through 3 or 4 paths,
only one of which is mostly made up of "official" backbone
members.  There are also a surprising number of multiple
cross-country hops that show up.

If you are a site on the internet in the midwestern states
listed above, and you find that articles arriving at your
site take an extraordinarily long Path: in getting there,
you are welcome to contact me to arrange a partial or backup
feed to trim down these paths and get articles more efficently.

If you are a site on the internet that acts as a regional hub
or part of a regional backbone, I'm interested in exchanging
locally generated news.  A quick scan of my articles here
indicates that a site in the Pacific Northwest and in the
southeast would be likely to be quite helpful.

--Ed
Edward Vielmetti, usenet news admin, U of Michigan mail group.