webber@aramis.RUTGERS.EDU (Webber) (04/23/87)
In article <7946@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: (re why usenet will distruct) > I do. I'll tell them that it self-destructed due to its inability to > handle unlimited growth. It will, you know... Actually we are helping it self-distruct (it ain't dying a natural death). THE BASIC SOLUTION: The most natural solution would be that if the a site cannot expend more than a certain amount of resources toward supporting the net, then it should just support the net to the extent that it can and then cease for that day. That would let the net adapt to such throughput restrictions in a `natural manner' (other sites picking up more share as they percieve greater responsibility). Of course, this is quite different from the power trip of getting up and telling everyone that you support the net to $x and you are going to control the net or completely withdraw. GENERAL PHILOSOPHY BEHIND THE PROBLEM AND SOLUTION: Both stargate and moderated groups are symptoms of the same kind of wrong-thinking, i.e., if you have a distributed system and it is having problems, the solution is to centralize control. Both stargate and moderators will naturally suffer from the problem that when central control goes down, the system flounders. In both cases you have information being first distributed to a central site then being broadcast from there. The result is that the central site (and immediate neighbors) control the system (both directly by setting policy and indirectly in that their problems become everyones). Sure they will reduce flow, but unmoderated newsgroups (where existing in tandam with moderated newsgroups) have consistantly higher quality (will come back to this in a later message), faster response, and greater reliability. ----------------------- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; BACKBONE!topaz!webber)
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (04/26/87)
> The most natural solution would be that if the a site cannot expend > more than a certain amount of resources toward supporting the net, > then it should just support the net to the extent that it can and then > cease for that day... This is what many sites are in effect doing. The key point is that those sites would like to support the *best* material, not just whatever happens to arrive first. This implies some sort of selection mechanism. > That would let the net adapt to such throughput > restrictions in a `natural manner' (other sites picking up more share > as they percieve greater responsibility)... What happens if nobody is willing to pick it up? Frankly, most of the backbone sites would be delighted to pass the whole job to somebody else. There is a distinct lack of volunteers for massive phone bills, massive system load, clogged communications lines, and regular public abuse. > ... unmoderated newsgroups (where existing in tandam with > moderated newsgroups) have consistantly higher quality (will come back > to this in a later message), faster response, and greater reliability. Faster response and greater reliability I don't argue with, since imposing any sort of single-point filtering mechanism inherently hampers those. Actually, I might argue with them somewhat in the context of Stargate, since Stargate transmission is both faster and more reliable once the article gets to the uplink site. The question is whether this makes up for it having to reach a moderator by mail and then get from him to the uplink; I suspect the answer is "not entirely". As for consistently higher quality, nonsense! The quality of a newsgroup is largely determined by two things: (1) how many really good people are reading it and posting to it, and (2) how much drivel is being posted by the real turkeys. Moderated groups win hands-down on item 2. As for item 1, the good people increasingly ignore the unmoderated groups because they don't have time to wade through all the drivel. Any apparent quality lead for the unmoderated groups is strictly temporary. -- "If you want PL/I, you know Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology where to find it." -- DMR {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
olsen@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (Jim Olsen) (04/28/87)
In article <7960@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: >Frankly, most of the backbone sites would be delighted to pass the whole >job to somebody else. There is a distinct lack of volunteers for massive >phone bills, massive system load, clogged communications lines, and >regular public abuse. If any backbone site is spending too much on netnews, it should gradually pare down its news flow to a level which it can comfortably support. Otherwise, when the budget crunch comes it may force a complete cutoff of news, causing much more disruption than a gradual reduction would. It's simply bad network policy for a backbone site to spend more on news than it can afford. -- Jim Olsen olsen@xn.ll.mit.edu ...!{mit-eddie,seismo,linus,lll-crg}!ll-xn!olsen