news@oberlin.UUCP (Netnews Administrator) (03/05/88)
I was wondering about feed etiquette. I was under the impression that each site was duty bound to feed any other site if such a feed did not cost the providing site anything. For example, anyone who wants a feed from us (and will call or wants it over DECNET) can get it. I have heard of sites sharing a DECNET refusing to provide news to their companion nodes on the DECNET. This seems unUSENETesque. What is the common convention on feeds? Chris Seline News@oberlin.edu ihnp4!news news@oberlin.csnet p.s. To those of you out there who we are discussing feeds with -- I'm not refering to you. :-> -- news@oberlin.edu (internet) ihnp4!oberlin!news Netnews Administrator, Oberlin College Computer Science
emv@fleetwood.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) (03/06/88)
In article <692@oberlin.UUCP> news@oberlin.UUCP (Netnews Administrator) writes: >I was wondering about feed etiquette. I was under the impression >that each site was duty bound to feed any other site if such a feed >did not cost the providing site anything. > ... > >What is the common convention on feeds? > >Chris Seline Providing a news feed always costs something as far as system resources goes - modem time on scarce modems, nntp traffic on congested gateways, disk i/o on heavily used disks. I should think that a site might have good reason to suggest that another site look for an alternate feed, even if there's no $ charges involved. Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan mail group.
mohamed@hscfvax.harvard.edu (Mohamed_el_Lozy) (03/07/88)
In article <3aad057d.c6e5@delrio.cc.umich.edu> emv@fleetwood.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) writes: > >Providing a news feed always costs something as far as system resources >goes - modem time on scarce modems, nntp traffic on congested gateways, >disk i/o on heavily used disks. Let me add two costs: 1. uucico (for uucp feeds) is not free. In fact, it uses lots of cpu cycles for a full feed. 2. Administrator time for care and feeding of uucp over phone lines. I feel that uucp over telephone lines works most of the time, but with the volume of a full feed the administrator will spend quite a bit of time babysitting the lines.
tmanos@aocgl.UUCP (Theodore W. Manos) (03/08/88)
Within reason what you say is true. However, if everybody were to not allow
other sites to feed from them, because of the additional drain on resources,
we wouldn't be here, would we???
-> Theodore (Ted) W. Manos tmanos@aocgl.{UUCP,uunet.UU.NET}
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**************************************************************************kennedy@tolerant.UUCP (Bill Kennedy) (03/09/88)
In article <525@hscfvax.harvard.edu> mohamed@hscfvax.UUCP (Mohamed_el_Lozy) writes: >In article <3aad057d.c6e5@delrio.cc.umich.edu> emv@fleetwood.cc.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) writes: >> >>Providing a news feed always costs something as far as system resources >>goes - modem time on scarce modems, nntp traffic on congested gateways, >>disk i/o on heavily used disks. > >Let me add two costs: > > 1. uucico (for uucp feeds) is not free. In fact, it uses lots of > cpu cycles for a full feed. There is an alternative, it will cost some cpu cycles but not as much as a uucico session. Note that rnews isn't very bashful about soaking up cycles. Stargate broadcasts all of the moderated groups and that covers some of the very bulky ones (sources, maps, etc). If a site is paying long distance to get news then I can nearly guarantee that Stargate is cost effective on a real dollar basis. Once you have gotten it in, it's just plain old news. > > 2. Administrator time for care and feeding of uucp over phone lines. > I feel that uucp over telephone lines works most of the time, but with > the volume of a full feed the administrator will spend quite a bit > of time babysitting the lines. You can't really pin that on news per se, it's uucp. My news feed (for the unmoderated groups) went sour for a few days because of modem changes I needed to adjust to but mail and file transfers were just as tangled and the amount of work to undo it was the same. Admittedly, when it came back up there was a flood of news but I don't think you can say that the sheer volume warrants any more SA time than any other uucp connection. The mention of Stargate requires some qualification. They have concluded the experimental phase and are now in the process of evaluating where to go from there. They consciously did not promote the service because it was still pretty experimental. If they elect to continue the project they will have to actively promote it and support it. I, as an experimental subscriber and just one site, would renew my subscription at the original rate (around $1K if I remember) because on a straight dollars and cents basis I pay those guys fewer $$ than I would to the telephone company for the same volume of news. I don't know in what form or fashion it will be available but I *do* recommend that news administrators explore it as a technique for balancing the uucp load. Oh, a lot of their earlier restrictions (don't remember them either) have been relaxed, give them a shout, steve@starbase.COM. The opinions are my own, Tolerant is nice enough to let me use their gear. Bill Kennedy {rutgers,cbosgd,ihnp4!petro}!ssbn!bill or bill@ssbn.WLK.COM