al@mot.UUCP (Al Filipski) (11/02/85)
* Does the net really need people to keep track of which groups are supposed to exist and to prune away unauthorized groups? Isn't it sufficient for each node to decide whether it wants to receive or transmit each group? When there is no interest in a group, nodes will independently cease transmitting it, it will fragment and whither away. If a node is concerned about high bills, it will unilaterally decide how to reduce its participation. It seems like it all should take care of itself BY LOCAL ACTIONS ONLY. Why are there directors on the net? Why do people issue rmgroups to others? Why is it necessary to vote on things? Does not a node (the entity footing the bill) vote by deciding what to carry? Has it been found that this kind of anarchy does not work for the net and some central control is necessary? It is not obvious to me that it is; but then, I am not one of the old-timers on the net. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alan Filipski, UNIX group, Motorola Microsystems, Tempe, AZ U.S.A 85282 seismo!ut-sally!oakhill!mot!al, ihnp4!mot!al, ucbvax!arizona!asuvax!mot!al --------------------------------------------------------------------------
david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover) (11/02/85)
In article <431@mot.UUCP>, al@mot.UUCP wonders: >Does the net really need people to keep track of which groups are >supposed to exist and to prune away unauthorized groups? Isn't it >sufficient for each node to decide whether it wants to receive or >transmit each group? Ideally, yes. > When there is no interest in a group, nodes >will independently cease transmitting it, it will fragment and whither >away. If a node is concerned about high bills, it will unilaterally >decide how to reduce its participation. It seems like it all should >take care of itself BY LOCAL ACTIONS ONLY. Sorry, it doesn't. We have this group of sites (known as the backbone) which agrees (somewhat) on the newsgroups will be carried by them. Any decision carried out by the backbone CANNOT be considered a local action. > Why are there directors on the net? >Why do people issue rmgroups to others? Why is it necessary to vote on >things? Does not a node (the entity footing the bill) vote by deciding >what to carry? Yes they do. > Has it been found that this kind of anarchy does not work >for the net and some central control is necessary? It is not obvious >to me that it is; but then, I am not one of the old-timers on the net. The directors are there to hold back total anarchy. It seems obvious (to me, apparently to a lot of other people also) that allowing newsgroups to be created freely is inviting a COMPLEX mess. Somebody gets an idea for a topic, issues a newgroup, the newsgroup gets created everywhere, maybe he's concientious and announces it somewhere, but people miss the announcement or something. (Or it's been 2 months since the announcement and nobody remembers the original idea) Now you've got this newsgroup 'net.something' and few people know the purpose. What's going to get posted. (A related problem is the creation of mod.computers.gould -- it was created under the assumption that it talked about gould computers -- I don't know the topic of that mailing list but I know it isn't gould computers)... Or maybe the creator is a dunderhead and doesn't realize that he should tell people what the group is supposed to be about. Remember the Standard Keyword Complaint (a particular keyword is not generally meaningful)? What if the creator is an incredibly strange person and his name makes a lot of sense to him but to nobody else? (i.e. the arpa mailing list 'sun-spots' can be about sun computers, astronomy, or ham radio) Ok. So we have Spaf keeping a list of newsgroups and descriptions. And he posts it regularly to remind people of the purposes of everything. That is helpful, right? -- David Herron, cbosgd!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET. English is a second language to me -- Baby talk was my first language.
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (11/04/85)
In article <431@mot.UUCP> al@mot.UUCP (Al Filipski) writes: >* >Does the net really need people to keep track of which groups are >supposed to exist and to prune away unauthorized groups? Isn't it >sufficient for each node to decide whether it wants to receive or >transmit each group? Only if the node sends *advance* notice to all downstream sites that it is doing so to give them a fair chance to find alternate feeds. The problem with this sort of thing is that different sites have vastly different ideas on what is appropriate, for instance Hopkins has closed the net.group newsgroup! And I have heard some sites complaining about some *technical* groups like net.sources. A second difficulty is that a large part of the atteactiveness of the net to the readers is the wide variety of subjects, including the non-technical subjects. I, for one, would read the news much less if groups like net.books and net.sf-lovers disappeared, and I would not be as opposed to my company dropping the net completely as I would be under current conditions. >will independently cease transmitting it, it will fragment and whither >away. If a node is concerned about high bills, it will unilaterally >decide how to reduce its participation. It seems like it all should >take care of itself BY LOCAL ACTIONS ONLY. Why are there directors on the net? >Why do people issue rmgroups to others? Why is it necessary to vote on >things? Does not a node (the entity footing the bill) vote by deciding >what to carry? Has it been found that this kind of anarchy does not work >for the net and some central control is necessary? It is not obvious >to me that it is; but then, I am not one of the old-timers on the net. > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Alan Filipski, UNIX group, Motorola Microsystems, Tempe, AZ U.S.A 85282 >seismo!ut-sally!oakhill!mot!al, ihnp4!mot!al, ucbvax!arizona!asuvax!mot!al >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) UUCP: {ttidca|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|quad1|nrcvax|bellcore|logico}!psivax!friesen ARPA: ttidca!psivax!friesen@rand-unix.arpa
herbie@polaris.UUCP (Herb Chong) (11/09/85)
In article <431@mot.UUCP> al@mot.UUCP (Al Filipski) writes: >Does the net really need people to keep track of which groups are >supposed to exist and to prune away unauthorized groups? Isn't it >sufficient for each node to decide whether it wants to receive or >transmit each group? only if it's a leaf node. imagine if a backbone site decided to throw away some newsgroups, as henry@utzoo is planning. it is one of the three major gateways into Canada. >It seems like it [the net] all should >take care of itself BY LOCAL ACTIONS ONLY. Why are there directors on the net? >Why do people issue rmgroups to others? Why is it necessary to vote on >things? Does not a node (the entity footing the bill) vote by deciding >what to carry? Has it been found that this kind of anarchy does not work >for the net and some central control is necessary? It is not obvious >to me that it is; but then, I am not one of the old-timers on the net. why are there governments? ideally, there should never need to be one because everyon works with other people to make the world a better place, and if you don't like the world the way it is, you can find yourself a place to make it in your image. unfortunately, the real world doesn't work that way. first, there level of knowledge of people making postings of netiquette is not uniformly high. second, the net is too big to make decisions by a consensus of all the people. third, most of the people don't want to make decisions every second. they have delegated, as we have to our governments, the right to make decisions to people who are supposed to know what is good for us. where they do or not is another question, and how the people who got delegated ended up that way is not entirely clear either, but that's the way it is now, whether you and i like it or not. we are just lucky that most of the powers that be actually have the well-being fo the net in mind. Herb Chong... I'm still user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble.... VNET,BITNET,NETNORTH,EARN: HERBIE AT YKTVMH UUCP: {allegra|cbosgd|cmcl2|decvax|ihnp4|seismo}!philabs!polaris!herbie CSNET: herbie.yktvmh@ibm-sj.csnet ARPA: herbie.yktvmh.ibm-sj.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa ======================================================================== DISCLAIMER: what you just read was produced by pouring lukewarm tea for 42 seconds onto 9 people chained to 6 Ouiji boards.