fair@APPLE.COM (Erik E. Fair) (02/19/89)
There has been some discussion of whether commercial information providers (e.g. BIX, CompuServe, The Source, GEnie, the WELL, Portal Communications Corp.) should be "allowed" on USENET, and to what extent they should participate (the double quotes around "allowed" are there because, realistically, there is little we can do to change whatever level of participation they choose in our network, so long as they can find at least one site to talk to). This article is my "take" on the question. There are a number of ways for these organizations to participate: 1. As a mail-only site. They would exchange Email between their subscribers and any other reachable address out in the Matrix (the world computer network consisting of the Internet, BITNET, the UUCP network, and the FidoNET [and probably some I forgot]). 2. Installing netnews alongside whatever forums, conferences, or whatever-term-you-like that they already have, but without any kind of cross linking or gatewaying. This is what exists on the WELL in Sausalito, California; their subscribers may partake of both the local conferences, and netnews, but the material that the users post in the local conferencing system stays on the WELL (and the stuff they post in netnews goes out to where ever it goes). 3. Doing a full blown gateway between their local conferencing system and netnews (or throwing away the local conferencing system in favor of basing it on netnews). Participating in the existing worldnet presents a variety of problems to these organizations, depending upon how they view themselves. If they go whole hog and their services exactly match the USENET, then they should worry about the potential for erosion of their subscriber base, and how they might continue to differentiate their service (and justify its cost) from what the typical netnews reader has at his disposal on a UNIX system. The first three areas that come to my mind for doing that are: 1. Extra information services that are only available on the particular system (not transmitted to USENET for reasons of copyright or contractual restriction, e.g. UPI news wire, or a moderation service [i.e. you can read netnews raw, or someone else's interpretation of what is most interesting]). 2. Superior user interfaces which have capabilities that netnews and/or our mail system don't have, perhaps including better information presentation, multi-media documents, sorting/filing/filtering tools, etc. 3. Strictly interactive services (e.g. games, simulations, and real-time conferencing). It is interesting to note that a number of small information services now exist within USENET and are basically profitable: UUNET, Portal Communications Corp. (netnews from outside their system seems to be the largest portion of the information that they offer, and they are doing just fine), and the WELL (which, as noted above, has its own local conferencing system that has not suffered from co-existence with netnews; netnews was there at the start of the service about four years ago, and it has been more of a draw than a subscriber base erosion causer). It should be fairly clear why the larger information services are beginning to show interest in joining us - if you believe Brian Reid's arbitron numbers, the USENET is about equal in size of the biggest information service in the U.S.: CompuServe, at 400,000 subscribers. I believe that USENET is now large enough, and generates enough useful information that a smaller information service must offer netnews to their subscribers, in order to compete effectively with the bigger services. In my opinion, the move by various information services to join USENET is a good thing, if they really do go all the way. I despair when I see lists of hundreds of bulletin board systems, some or all of which might have some interesting bit of information on them that I'll never see, because I don't have time to dial up and examine each one on a daily basis. USENET brings information to me (and to all of you, too), rather than forcing me to go to the information, and that's how worldnet ought to work. I'm glad to see that BIX is thinking of joining us, and I hope they decide to participate fully. Welcome to the wider world! Erik E. Fair apple!fair fair@apple.com
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (02/19/89)
While I don't see anything wrong with the participation of commercial online services in usenet, as long as it is done in cooperation, I don't think full bidirectional feeds would be desirable from our end. This is because all the online services I have seen (Compuserve, Genie, Bix, Delphi, The Source(long ago)) still have vestiges of their BBS related roots. In particular, their forums/sigs/round tables/conferences/groups all are full of messages like this: From: JOE to: FRED Subject: 2gs Thanks Fred, I will look into it. ie. personal replies and mail messages. This comes from the fact that the earliest BBS systems didn't even have EMAIL, and this was how you replied to somebody. This is encouraged today by the fact that most of the services still implement the concept of an open message "to" somebody. On usenet, messages are all "to all" and people get flamed when they violate this rule too much. (Not that usenet is perfect.) Anyway, any link with the online services would have to make sure these messages didn't get through. One could start simply by only taking messages that are "to: all", but the reply facilities on these services make that true only of original messages. No followups would come through. (Maybe that's a good idea.) I think the best idea is moderated gateways, that allow the best from each network to flow. If RHF ever expands to other nets, this is how I would set it up. Let's face it. Most groups are quite big enough -- we don't need more random input in them. Expanding them without editing serves little purpose. (I often think a good idea for USENET would be to split into regions where the groups are of a manageable size, and have only moderated groups cross regions.) -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
fair@Apple.COM (Erik E. Fair) (02/19/89)
Brad, I am in favor of full, unmoderated exchange with any and all other information sources that we can reach. I realize fully that this attitude means that we will drown in information (and drivel, for whatever your personal definition of drivel is) if we do nothing. However, I also believe that there are a variety of techniques, which, when added/applied to our software, will make it possible to comb the oceans of information that USENET generates, with a minimum of effort, and a maximum of effect. The problem will present itself to us sooner or later, and I'd rather have it solved sooner. If I can cause good solutions to appear sooner by making the problem more apparent to more people, so much the better (and there's neat new information for me to look at in the mean time). I also realize that there will be a period of culture shock for any other network joining the wider world. I expect that the FidoNET community is undergoing this culture shock right now, as their network gets more widely gatewayed to USENET (if you didn't know, there is now a package available to transparently gateway both Email and netnews to/from FidoNET's Fidomail and Echomail, such that the Fido looks like just another UUCP node to the USENET site). This is a normal part of (dare I say it?) "growing up" in the worldnet. Erik E. Fair apple!fair fair@apple.com
rob@inmos.co.uk (Robin Pickering) (02/20/89)
In article <26033@apple.Apple.COM> fair@Apple.COM (Erik E. Fair) writes: > I realize fully that this >attitude means that we will drown in information (and drivel, for >whatever your personal definition of drivel is) if we do nothing. > >However, I also believe that there are a variety of techniques, which, >when added/applied to our software, will make it possible to comb the >oceans of information that USENET generates, with a minimum of effort, >and a maximum of effect. It is worth remembering that there are more issues associated with the overloading of usenet that just the inconvenience of combing out useful information from it. It may not seem that way to sites on high bandwidth networks like the internet or who are a local trailblazer call away from their newsfeed, but even these transport methods have a *finite* capacity. This doesn't even take into consideration the local storage capacity problems many sites have with news. I am not against the importing of as much information as possible to the usenet but S/N ratio's must be taken into account. If for example the amount of [information | drivel] doubled as a result of these proposals and the actual useful information content increased by 10%, 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. Rob Pickering, Software Development Group, Inmos JANET: ROB@UK.CO.INMOS | ARPA: rob%uk.co.inmos@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk UUCP: rob@inmos.co.uk (...uunet!mcvax!ukc!inmos!rob) (... opinions expressed are my own ...)