jdiaz@hqsun1.oracle.com (Jean Marie Diaz) (02/22/89)
From: rob@inmos.co.uk (Robin Pickering)
Summary: usenet S/N means more than just time taken to read news
[If the S/N ratio drops much farther] a proportion
of existing networks/sites would either keel over and drop off the usenet
entirely or would seriously restrict the number of newsgroups propogated
(at present the only way of affecting S/N). This would be very detrimental
to the usenet as a whole.
"Imminent death of the net predicted." This is already happening, has been
for years. Sys files are larger, some sites aren't here that might be
otherwise, but the net still exists.
AMBAR
ambar@oracle.com {uunet,pyramid}!oracle!ambarvixie@decwrl.dec.com (Paul A Vixie) (02/22/89)
## This would be very detrimental to the usenet as a whole. # "Imminent death of the net predicted." This is already happening, has been # for years. Sys files are larger, some sites aren't here that might be # otherwise, but the net still exists. For once, I don't think the first person I quoted was predicting the imminent death of Usenet. He was pointing out a fact I agree with: This Network Sucks. And It Has Gotten Worse Over Time. Too many people, and they all want to contribute their two bits. (Me, for example.) Jean, you're right -- some sites aren't here that might be other- wise. Someday one of those sites will be UMD or UCB, finally dropping out because they can't deal with the drivel anymore and nobody who's left will much care. Uunet proved an interesting point -- people will _pay_ for this garbage. But as time goes on, the people I want most to read, don't write. They go on and find something else to do with their entertainment time, since Usenet leans more and more toward only being entertaining if you like to flame. No, Usenet won't die. Sometimes I think that's the problem, not a virtue. -- Paul Vixie Work: vixie@decwrl.dec.com decwrl!vixie +1 415 853 6600 Play: paul@vixie.sf.ca.us vixie!paul +1 415 864 7013
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (02/23/89)
> [If the S/N ratio drops much farther] a proportion > of existing networks/sites would either keel over and drop off the usenet > entirely or would seriously restrict the number of newsgroups propogated > (at present the only way of affecting S/N). >"Imminent death of the net predicted. Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. As someone who has been around USENET for a while, let me just point out that the imminent death of USENET has been predicted many, many times (I've done it more times than I want to admit at this point). When USENET volume hit a megabyte a month, the sky started falling When USENET volume hit a megabyte a week, the net wasn't going to last another year. When USENET volume hit a megabyte a day, it was a crisis that needed immediate attention. The reality is that USENET is amazingly flexible and responsive to traffic. It's been written off as dead more times than I can name. The funny thing is, while us 'experts' have been ranting and raving about the death of the net, the net just sort of goes on and proves us wrong. It changes over time. But dead? The net is a *lot* more robust than anyone wants to give it credit for. Chuq Von Rospach -*- Editor,OtherRealms -*- Member SFWA chuq@apple.com -*- CI$: 73317,635 -*- Delphi: CHUQ -*- Applelink: CHUQ [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.] Signature quotes? We don't need no stinkin' signature quotes!
mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) (02/23/89)
From: rob@inmos.co.uk (Robin Pickering) >[If the S/N ratio drops much farther] a proportion of existing >networks/sites would either keel over and drop off the usenet entirely >or would seriously restrict the number of newsgroups propogated (at >present the only way of affecting S/N). This would be very detrimental >to the usenet as a whole. This is certainly a problem, and (obligatory "Death of Usenet" warning :-) is bound to get worse as more PC's and Fido gateways get added to the net. I've long wanted a program that could filter out the chaff and just give me the few kernels of wheat. Perhaps some kind of program could be written, which would after each message ask the user to rate it from 1 to 10. Ultimately, it would figure out that user's criteria for rating, and stop giving him the 1's, 3's, or whatever. I would like to be able to change the "squelch" value, raising it to 6 or 7 if I'm busy and there's backed-up news, or dropping it to 2 or 3 if I'm exceptionally bored. A better approach would perhaps be to at least start off with some explicit criteria. Maybe the news-reader could have a "Why are you bothering me with this CRAP?!" key, like rn's "K" key, which could perhaps ask the user for what is wrong with this particular message, and drop the 'usefulness rating' of any message matching those criteria in the future. Of course, if this works reliably, at some time in the future backbone sites may start to run some such filter on the usenet traffic that passes through them. Hopefully this would be set low, to just filter out the real zero-content messages. I'm not entirely sure what I think of this possibility. But it beats dropping off the net entirely. -- Mike Van Pelt Video 7 ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp "... Local prohibitions cannot block advances in military and commercial technology.... Democratic movements for local restraint can only restrain the world's democracies, not the world as a whole." -- K. Eric Drexler
bill@twwells.uucp (T. William Wells) (02/24/89)
In article <240@v7fs1.UUCP> mvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) writes:
: I've long wanted a program that could filter out the chaff and just
: give me the few kernels of wheat.
It's called a moderator. :-)
---
Bill
{ uunet | novavax } !twwells!bill