benn@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Eldarion ap Aragorn) (11/21/85)
[]
THE FUTURE OF THE USENET COMMUNITY
Dear Readers:
This is topic number three, the analysis of the future
of the USENET as an "anarchy" and even as a social entity.
The strange relationship between endusers [readers and posters]
and SA's, especially backbone SA's, is discussed.
If it isn't marked "editor", it's not my opinion. Mail your
rebuttals and followups to me directly, with the topic
labelled. Next topic will be "Power Politics".
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[from Tom Kloos:]
I get the mail generated by rmgroups, I remove the specified groups,
then find that some mindless monkey on some far away machine recreates
the 'garbage filled' group that I've just removed (from multiple
machines!). Needless to say, it's discouraging at times.
I continue
playing with the news system for the same reason I imagine Gene
Spafford does, I enjoy seeing other people use something that I help
maintain. *and* ... I enjoy reading some of the groups that haven't
been corrupted by mindless ramblings.
Perhaps the best thing that could happen to USENET would be for it to
collapse. Maybe more would realize what it takes to keep this mess
going... Then again, maybe not..
Best regards,
-Tom Kloos, Tektronix, Wilsonville, Oregon
uucp: ..{ucbvax,decvax,uw-beaver,hplabs,ihnp4,allegra}!tektronix!orca!tomk
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Mr. Cox -
I have been associated with USENET since long before it was called
USENET, before Gene Spafford, Chuqui von Rospach, etc were involved,
and when Mark Horton was just a graduate student at UCB, starting with
the days of 'A' news direct from Steve Daniels et al at 'unc'.
I brought up 'A' news at Tektronix (actually 'tekmdp') in 1980 because
I felt it would help me with my job. I still feel it helps, if taken
in small and carefully controlled doses, although I read it on my own
time now, as I would a journal.
As one of the original sponsers of the net (tektronix has become the
major northwest feed, though I no longer work there), I am keenly
aware of the correctness of the reference to leaf network sites as
on 'the dole'. Although I despair that intellect will ever win over
flaming on the net, I hope people will read and understand your article . . .
[the one that called for discussion. See summary #1. --ed.]
S. McGeady {ucbvax,decvax}!tektronix!psu-cs!aatpdx!mcg
...!tektronix!ogcvax!inteloa!mcg
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Mr. Cox
When the backbone "cabal" decides to delete a newsgroup, it's inevitable
that people are going to think it's personal choice. As someone pointed out
with some truth recently, the UNIX hierarchy is a hierarchy of compunerds;
those who know most about UNIX, or who are higher upstream in Usenet, have more
power to decide about things which may have become very important to those
lower in the hierarchy.
For instance, when I asked [the SA for (site name deleted)] why he was
cutting off net.bizarre (which I read) rather than net.politics or net.flame
(which I don't read), he said, "Oh, but net.politics and net.flame are GREAT!"
This put me off a bit, as it implied that in return for what he does for
Usenet (which includes the users of the 10 or so machines off [site name]) he
has the power to decide which of the junk newsgroups gets sent to him (and the
users of the 10 machines).
Now, the only reason that he had the opportunity to do all this good stuff
for the net is that he is sufficiently versed in UNIX that he got the SA job at
[site]. He may be doing good stuff that I appreciate him doing, but that's
not to say that I wouldn't do exactly the same stuff if I had the power to.
But I find it hard to believe that these brilliant
people who built up the net and all the news software cannot cope with the
increased volume in any more objective and non-antagonizing way than deleting
newsgroups which they believe are unnecessary.
I am both a Reader and a Writer of the net. My site is a leaf node
("endsite" I suppose) but it receives news directly from ubc-vision, which is
a "backbone" site, according to the latest map.
--Jamie.
...!ihnp4!alberta!ubc-vision!ubc-cs!andrews
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Historically, the old timers who attempt to keep some order have very
loathe to restrict the network in any way, because ultimately that
would ruin the cooperative atmosphere that they have fostered, and
expose the true nature of the network (a network controlled,
ultimately, by those who hold the purse strings). This, at least, is my
feeling on the matter.
keeper of the network news for ucbvax,
and guardian of the gateway,
Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu
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[from Len Popp:]
The conclusion I've reached is that the network is going to choke to
death in the not-too-distant future. The basis for this conclusion is
that both of the concerns you raise, economic and sociological, present
serious obstacles to the continued existence of the net. The root cause of
both problems is the sheer volume of traffic on the net.
Second, the amount of traffic is so high, and the signal/noise ratio so
low, that people are not going to be able to afford the time to read news.
. . . The solutions people are proposing to limit traffic
or make it easier to sift through the mountains of information (e.g. more
moderated newsgroups or keyword-based news reading programs) are too
little, too late for Usenet. Fixing news is like "fixing" war; they're
both sociological problems.
So my opinion is that the net is going to collapse. I doubt that its next
incarnation will be as accessible to the masses, because size is its major
problem.
I am a news reader, not involved in network administration or maintenance.
I am at a backbone site (watdaisy isn't a backbone machine, but it's in the
same room as watmath).
Len Popp lmpopp@watdaisy
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Re. Anarchy, freedom, and the good ole' days:
Sorry, the good ole' days are gone.
Mike Lutz {allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!mjl
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First, my qualifications... net reader and writer (got on the
top 25 list once :-); located at about a third-level site (we
provide newsfeeds for most of the Phoenix area).
I think that it is remarkable that the dissenters actually agree
among themselves; this is fairly unusual.
It also provides a possible solution. If the dissenters will simply
take it upon themselves to create their own backbone (or spineless
net topology), there can actually be a "peaceful coexistence".
The new backbone would have to allow that the current backbone has
"dibs" on newsgroups net.*, mod.*, and fa.*. The current backbone
would allow the new backbone to glom onto some other set of names.
Maybe anarch.*? :-)
Heck, here in Arizona we set up our own "Arizona backbone" which
carries newsgroups named az.*; I think the same thing exists in a
number of other states, and in Europe.
Doug Pardee -- CalComp -- {calcom1,savax,seismo,decvax,ihnp4}!terak!doug
From: gargoyle!ihnp4!terak!doug (Doug Pardee)
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From: gargoyle!ihnp4!seismo!munnari!basser.oz!john
Cooperation. Then there would be no ``fear and loathing
in the spinal column''.
Will/can the net survive as an anarchy?
Well if it can't it won't,
so first let's try "can it?" I think it can. All it takes is less
shit on the wires. Blow away net.sources, and all those dogshit
microcomputer groups; they can get that on the Source or CompuServe;
put in that mod.sources. Note that I, unlike some, don't consider
moderation a threat to anarchy; nay, it's an asset. Look at all
the absolute abysmal trash in net.sources. We're all paying for
that! Sure, now and then there's something good. So have a mod
group. Not censorship, just a bit of intellect. We wouldn't need
it if so many of the people who post to the net weren't so god-damned
stupid. But that's the way it goes; it used to be little, now it's
big. Where before we had UNIX hackers (who I hope you will pardon me
if I consider as---by and large, mind you, I'm NOT being absolute
here---somewhat of a select group, intellect-wise), or *at least*
programmers, now it's a much bigger sample space.
Whew. Now for "will it?" Damned if I know. I hope so.
John Mackin, Basser Department of Computer Science,
University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
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I have been a Usenet reader for ~4 years and had a one-year
stint as a System Admin. at a public-access site, so I feel like a responsible
user, but my patience is very tried by these neophytes who think that Usenet
is theirs before they learn how to use it. It is like stealing a car and
going hogwild with it before you learn how to drive (and getting into lots of
accidents in the process). Then, when someone comes and points out to you
that you should take driving lessons and tells you the rules of the road, you
take that as a personal insult and start flaming him into submission. Anyway,
I am pretty fed up (if you couldn't tell). I just hope that they
have the wits to understand; before the highway becomes littered with them.
Stuart Freedman {genrad|ihnp4|ima}!wjh12!talcott!sesame!stuart
stuart%sesame.uucp@harvard.arpa {cbosgd|harvard}!talcott!sesame!stuart
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[this is a repost. --ed.]
From: mff@wuphys.UUCP (Swamp Thing)
[ . . .] However, I beleive that Gene Spafford has gone about
this in a way which was guaranteed to stir up trouble.[...] If Gene
had been more forthright and come out stating "Look guys, if we don't cut down
traffic, the s*** is going to hit the fan.", and then asked for suggestions, we
could have discussed this pretty much rationally. However, by hiding behind a
facade of rule enforcement and taking essentially unilateral action
(particularly with net.internat), what we got instead was useless controversy.
Mark F. Flynn ...ihnp4!wuphys!mff
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From: piet@mcvax.UUCP (Piet Beertema)
. . . take a look at why this network can exist worldwide at all: that's
because of the very presence of technical newsgroups, that justify the
very high transmission costs to spread the news all over the net; all
the other groups in this sense are just noise, that of necessity *must*
have a limited distribution.
And then judge for yourself if the creation of a new technical group should
be judged on the same basis as new noisegroups. Obviously not. So the contents
of (new) groups *are* important, very important! And the statement that new
groups just increase traffic? Yes, for noisegroups; but certainly not for
technical groups: there new groups provide an excellent means of specializing
and thus limiting the traffic!
Piet Beertema, CWI, Amsterdam
(piet@mcvax.UUCP)
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I will contend that much of the problems with the net today have to do with
wholesale disregard for net-ettiquette. the only way around this is either
moderated groups or unilateral action on the part of individual sites to
turn off certain groups and even individuals. Censorship (as I've repeated
oft before) is a dead issue now. More sites are going do as Rich Kulawiec
has done, and examine with a jaundiced eye what they are passing around.
Charley Wingate
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This is the end of summary #3: The USENET Community.
The topic is still open. Analyses, flames, comments,
rebuttals should be e-mailed for compilation. Please
label clearly what topic[s] you are addressing.
Thomas Cox
...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!benn
Never argue with a fool. People won't be able to tell who's who.
--
Thomas Cox ...ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!benndww@stl.UUCP (David Wright) (11/26/85)
Some time ago I discovered that I could save much time and miss very little
of any use by applying an immediate 'n' key to any article posted from
an imaginary site or name ("Court of the Lady Arwen", I think this one was).
I apply the same rule to those with over a page of included article.
So if the above posting said anything useful, could the originator re-post
with his/her REAL name and site?