lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (10/07/85)
OK. Let's try again. I really didn't need Fair's lengthy
tutorial on newsgroups, since I know this stuff about as well
as anyone, but obviously he didn't understand my objections.
This is a long message. Be warned.
---
The fa groups, by definition, are FROM ARPA. They are usually
viewed, quite properly, as ONE-WAY groups. While people sometimes
do followup to them, this practice is not widespread and these
groups are generally viewed as one-way conduits into Usenet. When
people want to reply to materials in these groups, they usually
use direct mail through a gateway to reach the ARPA moderator,
who then inserts the message into the next outgoing digest, or
delayed mail distribution, or whatever. The message flows back
into Usenet from ARPA.
Moving the fa groups to mod groups causes an immediate problem.
There is no distinction between mod groups that are totally
Usenet based and mod.* groups that are one-way tied to certain
ARPA lists (that is, the "former" fa groups). At least with the fa
label, people are discouraged from using those groups as "normal"
newsgroups in the sense that carrying on a great deal of followups
tends to be discouraged. People usually know that they should
send their replies to the ARPA moderator directly, so that the discussions
will make sense on both networks.
Now, the proposal to change fa to mod blurs this distinction. People
will start seeing those new mod groups as "ordinary" mod newsgroups, and
most people will tend to make their postings directly to the
appropriate Usenet mod group moderator. If the moderator simply
sends those messages out to Usenet, as they would for any other mod
group, two problems appear:
1) Discussion will get widely out of sync. You think it's bad now?
Just wait. The ARPA side, which in most cases (under this new
scenario) wouldn't see the messages that were sent to the Usenet
moderator and distributed only to Usenet, would be carrying on its
own independent discussion, while the Usenet side would see that ARPA
discussion but would also be carrying on its own many followups through
un-gatewayed messages. Long after an issue has been "settled"
(so to speak) on Usenet, the ARPA list may be continuing to discuss old
topics, oblivious to the Usenet-generated messages that they never saw.
The problem is that by changing the fa to mod you encourage the use of
the new mod groups like any other mod groups, BUT if these groups are
NOT being gatewayed into ARPA the ARPA material feeding into those same
groups will diverge and tend toward greater and greater confusion in
the one "combined" mod group that is handling both types of traffic
(Usenet-only and ARPA-one-way).
2) Since many persons with access to both ARPA and Usenet will be
aware of problem (1), and won't want to miss the Usenet-only
discussions that aren't appearing on the ARPA side, they will be
forced to start taking the entire new mod groups simply to make
sure they see the Usenet discussions being posted to that group.
Right now (in "fa" mode) these missed messages are relatively few in
number, but once the fa designation is gone and people start mailing
to the Usenet moderator instead of mailing to the ARPA moderator,
the number of missed messages will be MUCH higher. The mere changing
of fa to mod will tend to make people forget the posting distinction and
virtually assure that these sorts of problems will appear (that is,
more and more messages that only appear on the Usenet side).
Right now, a considerable load on Usenet is avoided by the ARPA/Usenet
sites that take the ARPA lists directly rather than by tying up phone
lines and running up phone bills getting those (often voluminous)
materials from Usenet ("fa") feeds. But once the volume of messages
that can't be seen on the ARPA side increases, many sites will be forced
to start taking the mod groups via dialup to avoid missing major (Usenet-
origin) parts of ongoing discussions. This is going to cost significant
money for the sites paying the bills and will increase Usenet
congestion as well. Higher bills and more congestion are things
we could do without right now!
---
I see several possible ways out. In no particular order, they are:
1) Leave things the way they are. Don't change fa to mod.
If it's not really broken, don't try fix it.
2a) Change the fa groups to mod groups, but post the ARPA-origin
messages in a subgroup of these mod groups (e.g. mod.foo.fa).
This would allow ARPA/Usenet sites to take the ARPA volume
directly from ARPA, but still subscribe to the "Usenet-only"
portion of the material via Usenet without being forced to
take the ARPA materials from Usenet as well.
2b) Do (2a), but also make it a requirement that the Usenet
moderator send Usenet-origin messages to the ARPA moderator
on a timely basis (this may often be slower than the current
technique of users mailing their replies directly to the
ARPA moderator, unfortunately). This will tend to avoid
the discussion schism effect between the two networks that
I discussed earlier. A potential problem with this technique
is that messages that have already appeared in the Usenet-origin
feed will reappear in the ARPA subgroups later after being
processed by the ARPA moderator. However, this problem can
be fairly easily solved. Since the materials from ARPA are generally
broken up into individual messages (when they aren't already)
before being sent into Usenet, the moderator (or appropriate
software) could avoid reposting materials to the ARPA-subgroup
which had already appeared in the Usenet-origin group.
3) Usenet users send all their messages for the former fa group
to the Usenet moderator, who has the responsibility of forwarding
it correctly into ARPA. The Usenet moderator doesn't do a direct
feed, but the messages come back in the ARPA traffic. There will
be some latency in comparison with users mailing directly to the
ARPA moderator in some cases, but given the overall latency of
Usenet this doesn't appear very serious.
I hope this long message has helped to clarify the problems that can
occur if a group starts seeing large volumes of Usenet-origin AND
ARPA-origin traffic in a single group without adequate gatewaying
or separation regarding point-of-origin. The effects of
increased costs and even more schismed discussions
are real and very likely to occur unless this situation is
handled with care.
--Lauren--fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU (Erik E. Fair) (10/07/85)
Thank you for spelling out your objections in detail, Lauren. I see now that we have had a misunderstanding, and I think I see the substance of the misunderstanding. Hopefully the following question will spark the necessary enlightenment: Who ever said that there would be a USENET moderator for an ARPA mailing list? I quote from my original proposal: >> List of Moderators: >> >> mod.human-nets human-nets@red.rutgers.edu >> mod.telecom telecom@red.rutgers.edu >> mod.computers.macintosh info-mac@sumex-aim.arpa >> mod.computers.vax info-vax@sri-kl.arpa >> mod.computers.vlsi info-vlsi@sandia-cad.arpa >> mod.computers.laser-printers laser-lovers@washington.arpa >> mod.computers.works works@red.rutgers.edu >> mod.protocols.tcp-ip tcp-ip@sri-nic.arpa >> mod.protocols.kermit info-kermit@cu20b.columbia.edu >> mod.protocols.appletalk info-applebus@c.cs.cmu.edu >> mod.politics poli-sci@red.rutgers.edu >> mod.politics.arms-d arms-d@mit-mc.arpa >> mod.computers.ibm-pc info-ibmpc@usc-eclb.arpa >> mod.computers.pyramid info-pyramid@mimsy.umd.edu >> mod.computers.sun sun-spots@rice.edu >> mod.computers.apollo info-apollo@yale.arpa >> net.announce.arpa-internet arpanet-bboards@mit-mc.arpa I intend that, just like the `fa' groups, only the ARPANET moderator will be able to post to the newsgroup. If a USENET person wishes to get something into the list, it will be necessary for him/her to mail the article to the ARPA moderator, just like the `fa' groups. There will not be a moderator for the `USENET side' because that would indeed cause the problems that you note. Three things change with the new structure: 1. the names become vastly more descriptive of the content 2. mail reply to the article's author or followup to the whole newsgroup/mailing list both work (they didn't with `fa' because the software never properly supported the notion of a `moderator' to whom you mail your submission for `fa' groups). 3. the software prevents (as much as is practical) postings by users other than the moderator (this was a constant problem with the `fa' groups, which did lead to the discussion sync problems that you cite). The discussion sync problems that you suggest will not happen with `mod' groups precisely because of the way the software works, and because postings will be mailed to the moderator on the ARPANET by the users, so that when the digest, batch, or whatever is distributed, everyone who gets that list/newsgroup on BOTH networks will see the submitted item (moderator willing). In turn, the increased costs to zealous system administrators who wish to track `both sides' of a lists will not come about, because the discussions will not be out of sync. Did I clear things up? Or have I further alarmed you? Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU
chris@umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek) (10/08/85)
I had understood your `way #3', or a modification thereof, to be the proposed method for handling the fa -> mod mapping. The modification is that rather than sending each article to a Usenet moderator who then forwards to the ARPA list, in some (many?) cases the `Usenet moderator' listed in the moderators file would actually be the ARPAnet moderator. This, of course, cannot be done without crossing the Usenet -> ARPAnet barrier automatically, and that is officially frowned upon; yet it has a rather nice `feel' to it, if you take my meaning. In any case, I think that the only thing the fa -> mod conversion will do is make submission from Usenet sites easier. (Whether this is a good thing is perhaps debatable. :-) ) -- In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 4251) UUCP: seismo!umcp-cs!chris CSNet: chris@umcp-cs ARPA: chris@mimsy.umd.edu
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (10/08/85)
Sometimes I shudder at some of the important things starting to be handled via electronic mail discussions, when I see how easy it is for misunderstandings to occur in this medium. If the posting rule states that ALL messages for the new mod groups (created from the old fa groups) MUST be sent directly to the ARPA moderators (lists), who will be the ONLY ones authorized to do the postings, then I have no significant problems with the proposal. No new newsgroups are created (only the names are changed [sounds like something from "Dragnet"...]) and replies might well be enhanced. I assume that the Followup-To: line will point at the ARPA moderators? And the addresses for these moderators will be in some form that will offer the typical Usenet user a good chance of getting their responses through a gateway back into ARPA? (That's quite a problem for many people these days, as we all know, since the gateway syntax is rather confusing to the layman in our current hybrid environment). The issue of people successfully getting their postings to the ARPA moderators through the gateway(s) is the one that most concerns me under this structure. Sorry about any misunderstanding. So long as the ARPA moderators are the only people doing the "real" posting to these fa -> mod groups, I don't see serious problems. --Lauren--
gnu@l5.uucp (John Gilmore) (10/10/85)
Now that we've got that straight (getting enough sleep lately Lauren?), I have a minor objection to the New Regime. To post something to an fa group, you could reply to the address in the header. To send something to an individual, you could manually type their address. This was painful, and not the same as other newsgroups, but was always possible. In the New Regime, to post something to the newsgroup requires that your system adminitrator maintain a "moderators" file. This file is NOT maintained automatically, since it contains mail addresses that (in the uucp world) must be different for each system. The old system would keep track of the route the newsgroup had followed, and while the path back was probably horribly inefficient, it had a strong probability of working. The New Regime won't work at all unless everybody is conscientious about maintaining their "moderators" file. (I do this for L5 and it took about an hour to translate the "user@host.uucp" stuff supplied by the net wizards into uucp paths from my location, for the existing set of 16 moderated worldwide newsgroups. You are proposing at least doubling this number.) It would be awfully nice if the netnews software maintained this info for us, but it doesn't. When I suggested (privately) that fa could convert to mod, I didn't realize mod groups required manual maintenance at every site. What do we do? PS: Don't say "convert to pathalias". I'm waiting til *it* maintains itself... PPS: The new newsgroup names *are* too long, but I won't haggle over that.
fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU (Erik E. &) (10/12/85)
I'm glad that I have answered your objections to your satisfaction, Lauren. Personally, I find that electronic mail is just fine for handling decisions, because the entire discourse is a matter of record. As for misunderstandings, so long as both parties remain patient and civil, they can be cleared up with sufficient effort, as demonstrated here. Once I get this gateway conversion done, I can concentrate on some information structuring issues that have been under discussion in net.news lately. keeper of the network news for ucbvax, and guardian of the gateway, Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU
spaf@gatech.CSNET (Gene Spafford) (10/17/85)
In article <190@l5.uucp> gnu@l5.uucp (John Gilmore) writes: >In the New Regime, to post something to the newsgroup requires that >your system adminitrator maintain a "moderators" file. This file is >NOT maintained automatically, since it contains mail addresses that (in >the uucp world) must be different for each system. No, it is different only for sites that cannot understand addresses of the form foo@bar.ARPA or foo@bar.UUCP. >The New Regime won't work at all unless >everybody is conscientious about maintaining their "moderators" file. That means about 15 minutes work every few months to update the file. If someone views that as a hardship then they probably don't have the time to read or post news, either. >(I do this for L5 and it took about an hour to translate the >"user@host.uucp" stuff supplied by the net wizards into uucp paths from >my location, for the existing set of 16 moderated worldwide >newsgroups. You are proposing at least doubling this number.) I provide connectivity information for each site relative to well-known sites. With a printout in hand it took me less than 10 minutes to come up with the paths. If it took you an hour, you must be terribly isolated in terms of uucp connections, or else you aren't very familiar with how to reach the "outside" world. Once you've created such a file, it will hardly ever change. Updates of one or two moderators every few months can be folded in in under 5 minutes apiece, I would bet. >It would be awfully nice if the netnews software maintained this info >for us, but it doesn't. It can't as long as sites run mailers that cannot understand foo@bar mail addresses. >When I suggested (privately) that fa could >convert to mod, I didn't realize mod groups required manual maintenance >at every site. What do we do? Avoid posting to moderated newsgroups :-) It doesn't require any maintenance to READ the groups.... -- Gene "3 months and counting slowly" Spafford The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332 CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!spaf