taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) (03/25/87)
[a verbatim copy of a message I've sent off to the mailing lists
moderators@cbosgd (Usenet mod newsgroup moderators) and backbone@cbosgd
(members of the so-called backbone cabal and others). I *strongly*
request that you read this message, THINK ABOUT WHAT I'M SAYING HERE,
and reply to the group or to the mailing lists via email. Remember:
this is ***YOUR*** distributed conferencing system and USENET is an
***ANARCHY***. If people suggest you don't reply here, think about
WHO THEY ARE to tell you what you can do on a system where YOU'RE paying
the bill. Furthermore, remember that if they are paying a larger bill
THEY CAN STOP. NO-ONE IS FORCING ANYONE TO FEED ANYONE ELSE. Believe
it or not.
THIS IS IMPORTANT. PLEASE PLEASE reply to this message... -- Dave --]
[in reply to a discussion about renaming the mod.* newsgroups]
Just thought I'd mention that while you're all able to say that the
transition from mod.* groups to the various other names will go without
incident there are in fact quite a number of sites that have administrators
that monitor and maintain netnews as a "fun" thing on the side, if at all.
So instead of saying something like "gad - what a jerk for still running
news 2.10" and "let's force 'em all to update" why not post something
ASKING people who maintain their netnews systems if they'll be able to
update by a certain date? If we can get a 75% reply that says "by May
1st, for sure" then that's when we target the change.
(And if people don't reply, that says something too, doesn't it?? Like
maybe that netnews isn't quite the holy grail that some people make it
out to be...)
Believe it or not, USENET is supposed to be a democracy. This does NOT
mean that because those hard-core hacker/adminstrator types have already
updated to news 2.11 (or 2.12) that everyone else has done so, or even
has the same level of interest. Indeed, what happens at sites where the
administration group *just doesn't want netnews* but the readers do? The
administrator might do absolute minimal work (as in "there! it's up. now
leave me alone!") and they might not want to give the users access to
the netnews software/account.
By way of example, HP Labs, a backbone, has *not* yet updated to news
2.11. Why? We're A) innundated by real work, stuff that is far more
pressing and important to our corporation (can you say "real world?")
and our careers than putzing around with netnews and B) we're not yet
convinced that news 2.11 is stable enough to actually rely on. Instead,
*I'm* using it for my moderated group postings by way of a small-scale
test. In a few weeks, perhaps, we'll transition. Or maybe it'll take a
lot longer.
But it's a sure bet that if we get mail from some self-appointed
net administration group saying "update or die, scum!" then we'll
more likely than not just flip our middle finger in the air and watch
what happens.
As I write this message I can just imagine the kind of flames I'll
get in response - things like "USENET, Love it or Leave it". Or
like "well, maybe we'll take hplabs off the precious cabal altogether
if you're going to be like THAT about it". And that is also quite
disturbing.
As I said earlier, the foundation of USENET is that it is a free
democracy. If people don't want newsgroups they should tell their
feeds not to give it to them. If people don't want to get email
through their machine, they should refuse the connection. If people
want to *limit* their news flow, or mail flow, they could put into
place connection-time limits on uucp/smtp/nntp/?? connections. THAT
is how these things should be solved, not by the taking power of a
group of people who "have the best interests of the net at heart".
They don't. I am *really* disgusted and, alas, not particularly
suprised, by the evolution of the USENET over the past few years.
A little moderation is a good thing. A little administration is
a marginal thing, but a CABAL is totally bad news. And for better
or worse we are indeed in just that position.
Let's look at the renaming as an example. The purported reason was
to make it 1. more logically organized, and 2. easier to administer.
Well, logical organization isn't helped by renaming the pieces of
a badly organized mass, and administration isn't helped either. To
solve the first we need to have a better user interface (one that
will allow browsing of articles by *topic* not by *group*, for example)
and to solve the second we need something like *better administration
tools*. Sites like the University of Toronto and HP Labs had no problem
refusing to feed newsgroups in the old scheme - simply tell your upstream
feeds that you DON'T WANT THE GROUP and tell your downstream sites that
YOU WON'T FEED IT TO THEM and they figure out an alternative. No
problem.
So what did we gain? A serious power play and exercise of muscle by
the backbone cabal (that group again) and a LOT of grief for system
administrators and users, all without much, if any, payback. The pain
that people went through was really tough...
This is coming out as a really serious flame. Well, so be it. I really
wanted to bring some of these issues up at the last USENIX meeting
when there was the Usenet BOF, but with that many people in the room,
and (more importantly) that many people who had blindly bought into the
current system, hook, line and sinker, I would inevitably have just been
met with derision and not had any sort of satisfying answers. But I
think this stuff damnwell needs to be talked about, and if I can help
it I am going to STOP this powerplay and STOP this perversion of StarGate
and STOP this uucp mapping project monster and make USENET what it was
that made it so fun and exciting - a FREE, INDEPENDENT, POLITIC-FREE
NETWORK THAT ANYONE RUNNING THE RIGHT SOFTWARE (available for free,
without any copyright restrictions and such) COULD JOIN FOR THE COST
OF A PHONE BILL.
I STRONGLY invite others to post their agreement or disagreement with
this letter not only to this group, but to news.group and news.admin,
both of which will receive a copy of this message.
And be warned: any mail that I receive from anyone who I feel is 'part
of the problem' will be forwarded to the entire mailing list. If you
can't talk about it to the group (indeed to the net as a whole) then
WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT????? WHO THE HECK DO YOU THINK
YOU ARE, ANYWAY????? *I* am not going to just sit down and let this
happen any more. It seriously is bad news, and if others could just
realize the perversion that is happening, I really believe that they'd
be flipping out too.
And finally, if this shocks or hurts some people, I'm sorry, but this
*is* the way I see it and it really is a bad situation.
-- Dave Taylor
taylor@hplabs.HP.COM
ps: a slightly cleaned up version of this will also be sent to the
entire USENIX board, with a strong suggestion that a meeting be
held to consider the further funding of the UUCP Mapping Project and
the Stargate Project. Further news on that will be found in
news.stargate and news.group soon. This badness *really must stop*.
<< the preceeding shouldn't be construed as an official policy statement
of HP Labs as a whole - I do not go as far as to represent anyone but
myself. If only others did the same... >>