robert@weitek.UUCP (Robert Plamondon) (04/03/86)
While I sympathize with all the sites that can't handle the extreme
volume of netnews, I dislike the way groups are being zapped right
and left, especially since certain net.nazis are using this as an
excuse to barge into groups and bellow, "Shape up, assholes, or
you're next!"
I suggest that, rather than eliminating groups entirely, we create
another news category: "trash." Thus, net.bizarre would become
trash.bizarre, net.flame would become trash.flame, etc.
Sites that are willing to carry trash groups would add "trash.all"
to their sys files, and people who didn't want them wouldn't.
Specifically, backbone sites wouldn't be expected to automatically
carry the trash groups. Trash-news junkies would have to arrange
their own feeds.
This way, everybody gets their choice. The net.guardians-of-public-morals-
and-preventers-of-high-phone-bills could decide to downgrade a group
to "trash" status, but not eliminate it entirely, and the decision
about which groups to receive is resolved on the system administrator
level, as it should be.
--
Robert Plamondon
UUCP: {turtlevax, cae780}!weitek!robert
FidoNet: 143/12 robert plamondoncej@well.UUCP (Craig Jackson) (04/08/86)
In article <399@weitek.UUCP> robert@weitek.UUCP (Robert Plamondon) writes: >I suggest that, rather than eliminating groups entirely, we create >another news category: "trash." Thus, net.bizarre would become >trash.bizarre, net.flame would become trash.flame, etc. > >Sites that are willing to carry trash groups would add "trash.all" >to their sys files, and people who didn't want them wouldn't. I think this suggestion has a certain amount of merit. One of the best ways to distribute the phone bills around would be to distribute the newsgroups among the various links. (I have no idea if this isn't already done among some of the backbones.) To be successful, though, I think the name would need to be less pejorative-- something like misc would be more acceptable. (This might lead to misc.misc, but you can't win all the time.) Of course, what many places would want is the distinction tech.all and nontech.all, but that might lead to a little to much conclusion-drawing by management. -- Craig Jackson UUCP: {ihnp4!linus,seismo!harvard}!axiom!mhis!dricej {dual,ptsfa,lll-crg,hplabs}!well!cej BIX: cjackson