thau@h-sc1.UUCP (robert thau) (10/23/85)
"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." --- Ralph Waldo Emerson It seems that Gene Spafford has recently taken to reorganizing USENET to suit his tastes. At first, he simply deleted a number of small, inoffensive newsgroups which had practically no traffic anyway. Nobody particularly cared. (This has been defended as follows: "even small (local) volume adds up to a large amount net-wide." But what does small global volume (1-2 messages per week) add up to?) Recently, however, Spafford has taken it upon himself to delete two thriving, busy newsgroups --- net.internat and net.bizarre. The case of net.internat is especially distressing, as this newsgroup's signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore undreamt of on USENET. On top of the fact that two busy newsgroups are going away, the fundamental character of the net is being changed, I think, for the worse. Spaf may not have created the rules he cites, but his *centralized* enforcement of them, with a literal-mindedness rarely seen outside of fourth-grade classrooms and the IRS, is something entirely new. Spaf's oft-repeated hallucination that the New Order already came about three years ago, and that he is simply "continuing to maintain" it (a direct quote), by the power vested in him by nobody in particular, is simply wrong. I was here too. To deal directly with some of Spaf's more obnoxious claims: the deletion of net.bizarre does *not* represent "traditional USENET anarchy at its finest," nor even at its lowest. I admit that net.bizarre consists, at this point, entirely of trash. What I object to is its unilateral deletion by a cabal of topologically well-placed superusers. A decision not to carry the newsgroup at any individual site might be marginally "anarchic," if it were not propagated, but a gaggle of rmgroup messages hit absolutely everybody. In any case, if the decision were truly a local one, there would have been no need to inform the network as a whole, at length, in net.announce. Also, while the net.announce posting on the subject contained a number of helpful hints on setting up an alternate backbone and so forth, Spaf's real feelings on the matter seem to be summed up by the first paragraph, which says in full, without qualification, "Net.bizarre is going to go away." Postings of this sort, no matter what the content, are symptomatic of somebody trying to take control. More peculiar is Spafford's contention that established procedures were not followed in the creation of net.bizarre. The initial create messages were indeed wildcats, but subsequently there *was* a discussion on net.news.group, which *did* result in a consensus. What's the gripe? Equally peculiar is Spafford's claim that net.internat was started as a wildcat newsgroup. As postings on net.internat itself have made clear, the group was mandated at an EUUG meeting. Its cancellation is even more peculiar. On the basis of Spaf's own postings, this group seems to be the summum bonum: a technical group (easy to justify to management) with a relatively small, but nontrivial volume, in which over 50% of the postings have something new and interesting to say. Compare that to net.unix. (Or has it improved since I unsubscribed?) The excuse given several times is that it was not established in accord with existing procedures, and thus must be cancelled along with net.bizarre in order that "enforcement" be "consistent." Emerson aside, this argument doesn't carry much weight, since net.bizarre *was* (eventually) created in accord with the existing procedures. However, we only truly arrive in tripped-out looking-glass electric kool aid wonderland when we examine Spafford's ideas on how a newsgroup *should* come into being. To keep this missive from getting completely disjointed, I'll prefix my discussion of spaf's comments with a few comments of my own. USENET has a problem: garbage. I don't mean net.flame, or net.bizarre, or any of those monstrosities one can get away from by a simple 'ug'. I mean naive, silly, or simply incorrect postings everyplace they could possibly show up. (So I don't get hit, Mea Culpa. Once.) This kind of trash makes many of the technical groups simply unreadable (at least for me). (Yes, I know about the kill-list feature of 'rn'. No, I haven't tried it. No, I don't think it would help. New garbage shows up more quickly than the old garbage goes away). One possible solution is simply yoking in the idiots, e.g. with moderated groups. Ignoring the fact that moderated groups so far seem half-successful at best, moderation implies central control, the evils of which are by now apparent. What's left? The best one can do is try to provide a haven for those interesting discussions which do arise from time to time. To this end newsgroups are created among users. If the net is going to remain worthwhile as more people sign on, newsgroup creation has got to get more flexible, not more rigid. On to Spafford. Quoting directly: > Proposals have been made recently for groups like "net.personals", > "net.os" and "net.docs". Although some people think these are good > ideas in some way or another, there has yet to be any *demonstrated > volume* of postings on these topics in any newsgroup. Thus, there is > no real need for separate newsgroups on those topics. (There are other > objections to "net.personals" and "net.docs", but that should be > enough.) In other words, a new newsgroup can only be created to siphon off a flood of drivel which is inundating an existing newsgroup, to give it a nice, warm, isolated home where it can flourish in peace. This requirement seems particularly odd when stated by someone whose stated concern is the a minimization of total net volume, and who objects to new newsgroups on the basis that they might (heaven forbid!) provide a forum for articles that might not get otherwise posted. If net.bizarre proves anything at all, it is that the last thing we need is another newsgroup with a *demonstrated volume* of postings! At another point, Spafford notes that: > Creating a newsgroup just because > the topic is interesting is *NOT* something we have had as part of this > procedure [for creating new groups]. In so far as this sentence even makes sense (which it doesn't), it says that small newsgroups sustaining interesting discussions are absolutely out of the question. JUST WHAT THE HELL IS THIS NETWORK FOR, ANYWAY??? So why not make it a mailing list? As has been pointed out in this forum repeatedly, it is often the case that far more people want to read a newsgroup than to write it. It's also worth pointing out that good postings require thought, and thought takes time, so in a newsgroup containing thoughtful discussion, the volume will inevitably be relatively low. (Relative to sinkholes like net.bizarre, net.flame, and net.unix, that is). I believe the actual volumes of the various groups on the net do bear me out on this point. Another Spafford objection to creation of new newsgroups which seems partially reasonable at first blush is that locally written software is breaking because it's running out of space. Well, I've written my own software. It runs (more or less) on a PDP-11. Adjusting it for more groups, should that become necessary (it hasn't) is simply a matter of changing a number in a header file and typing 'make'. I have *no sympathy* for anyone whose software would require more work than this. *NONE*. One final note. I am one of the recipients of mail to the 'usenet' alias on tardis.ARPA. As such, I have noticed (just today) new newsgroups called (of all things) net.internat and net.misc.coke. Plainly, there are people out there (like me) who aren't usually terribly vocal in this forum, but nevertheless resent being screwed over by the gods. The result of this situation will probably be reminiscent of the early days of net.bizarre: people attempting to carry on a discussion on newsgroups which are flitting in and out of existence on a daily basis. This is annoying to all concerned, those trying to sustain the group and those trying to destroy it alike. At the very least, it would be nice to avoid this situation by declaring a moratorium on the removal of groups until there is a genuine, rational, net-wide consensus on how to proceed. That's *net-wide*, not majority vote of the backbone cabal. (p.s. If traffic on the backbone is such a problem, why not simply improve connectivity to eliminate the backbone? This is a *solution* which could be implemented by *local* decision of backbone sites to shuck some connections, and *local* decisions at other sites to add new ones. Any takers?) -- Robert Thau --- The *Young* Curmudgeon.
woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) (10/24/85)
> It seems that Gene Spafford has recently taken to reorganizing USENET > to suit his tastes. Wrong. He has taken to reorganizing it to suit a consensus of backbone site administrators, who pay for the damn thing. > Recently, however, Spafford has taken it upon himself to delete two > thriving, busy newsgroups --- net.internat and net.bizarre. The case > of net.internat is especially distressing, as this newsgroup's > signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore undreamt of on USENET. The content of the groups is not the issue. These groups were created without going through the proper procedure which has been WELL DOCUMENTED. We simply cannot continue to let every bozo who thinks his topic is of interest and gets 10 people to agree with him create a newsgroup. The removal of this group is a STATEMENT to the net as a whole: if you do not follow proper procedure, you cannot create a newsgroup. I support Spaf 100%. > On top of the fact that two busy newsgroups are going away, the fundamental > character of the net is being changed, I think, for the worse. You are, of course, entitled to hold your own opinion. I even agree with it. But, we have to wake up and face reality: we can NO LONGER AFFORD to allow anyone to post whatever they want whenever they want. It just isn't practical any more. We have two choices: do something about it (i.e. change "the character of the net") or let the net collapse under its own weight. I know which of those choices *I* prefer. How about you? > Spaf may not have created the rules he cites, but his *centralized* > enforcement of them... ...is absolutely mandatory. If there isn't enforcement of the rules from somewhere, people won't obey them. > To deal directly with some of Spaf's more obnoxious claims: the deletion of > net.bizarre does *not* represent "traditional USENET anarchy at its finest," He did not, I believe, say that. What he DID say was: the backbone sites deciding not to CARRY it represented USENET anarchy at it's finest. If you want to argue with Spaf, I suggest you argue with what he actually said. Otherwise you are just arguing with yourself. > What I object to is its unilateral deletion by a > cabal of topologically well-placed superusers. Tough. "topologically well-placed" sites are also the ones who PAY for most of it. If you want to foot our phone bill for net.bizarre, fine. If not, then don't tell us what we should and shouldn't be willing to pay for. >A decision not to carry the > newsgroup at any individual site might be marginally "anarchic," if it were > not propagated, but a gaggle of rmgroup messages hit absolutely everybody. True. Again, that is because those groups never should have been created in the first place. The creators of those groups DID NOT FOLLOW ACCEPTED and WELL-ESTABLISHED procedures. > In any case, if the decision were truly a local one, there would have > been no need to inform the network as a whole, at length, in net.announce. It wasn't a local one. It's high time people start following the rules. The net is now simply too big for TOTAL anarchy. If you don't like the rules, that's a separate issue. Submit articles asking to change them. Perhaps lots of people agree with you. The present set of rules was indeed agreed upon years ago; it's a pity we didn't enforce them then, as it wouldn't be so difficult to do so now. > Also, while the net.announce posting on the subject contained a number of > helpful hints on setting up an alternate backbone and so forth, Spaf's real > feelings on the matter seem to be summed up by the first paragraph, > which says in full, without qualification, "Net.bizarre is going to go away." Just so you know, he isn't alone. The group never should have been created in the first place. > Postings of this sort, no matter what the content, are symptomatic of > somebody trying to take control. That's like saying the police officer who arrested you is also responsible for making the laws. That isn't so. By your own admission, Spafford did not make the rules up himself. He's just enforcing them. > More peculiar is Spafford's contention that established procedures were not > followed in the creation of net.bizarre. The initial create messages > were indeed wildcats, but subsequently there *was* a discussion on > net.news.group, which *did* result in a consensus. IT DID?? That's news to me! 10 people posting "I want the group" articles is NOT the kind of consensus called for in the rules, which are WELL STATED in Spaf's recent posting. I suggest you read them. The rules specifically state that desire of a number of people is NOT SUFFICIENT GROUNDS to create a newsgroup. You forgot the #1 criteria: DEMONSTRATED NEED, which means traffic IN OTHER RELATED GROUPS. There was no such demonstrated need *ever* for net.bizzare. > Equally peculiar is Spafford's claim that net.internat was started as > a wildcat newsgroup. As postings on net.internat itself have made clear, > the group was mandated at an EUUG meeting. Since when does EUUG get to make worldwide decisions? If that's the case, let them create eur.internat. Also, consensus reached at a meeting does not fit in ANYWHERE in the criteria for newsgroup formation. At least READ the goddam rules before you start this kind of argument. > Its cancellation is even more peculiar. On the basis of Spaf's own > postings, this group seems to be the summum bonum: a technical group > (easy to justify to management) with a relatively small, but nontrivial > volume, in which over 50% of the postings have something new and interesting > to say. Once again, the content of the group is not at issue. It's method of creation IS the issue. Let's stick to that, please. We cannot selectively enforce the rules based on which groups we think are "worthwhile", or then it really WILL be altering the net to suit our own personal tastes. > The excuse given several times is that it was not established in accord > with existing procedures, and thus must be cancelled along with net.bizarre > in order that "enforcement" be "consistent." And how many flames do you think Spaf would get if he came out and said "net.bizzare is garbage, so we're going to remove it, but net.internat has useful material in our opinion, so we're going to keep that one". That truly WOULD be subjective removal of groups. > Emerson aside, this argument > doesn't carry much weight, since net.bizarre *was* (eventually) created > in accord with the existing procedures. No, it wasn't. There was never any demonstrated need by postings in other groups. Re-read the rules, particularly #1. > (Yes, I know about the kill-list feature of 'rn'. No, I haven't tried it. > No, I don't think it would help. New garbage shows up more quickly than the > old garbage goes away). One possible solution is simply yoking in the idiots, > e.g. with moderated groups. Ignoring the fact that moderated groups so far > seem half-successful at best, moderation implies central control, the evils > of which are by now apparent. To whom? YOU? I'm beginning to think that SOME form of control is ESSENTIAL. Moderation seems to me to be the lesser of several possible evils. > What's left? The best one can do is try to provide a haven for those > interesting discussions which do arise from time to time. Who gets to decide what is "interesting"? That's why the rules were created in the first place, to provide OBJECTIVE criteria for justifying new groups. >To this end > newsgroups are created among users. If the net is going > to remain worthwhile as more people sign on, newsgroup > creation has got to get more flexible, not more rigid. I couldn't disagree more. The major problem with the net right now is simple: TOO MUCH TRAFFIC. New groups increase traffic; that is a fact. We have to SLOW DOWN the rate of growth. Newsgroup creation needs to become MORE controlled, not less. > In other words, a new newsgroup can only be created to siphon off a > flood of drivel ..or a flood of good articles on a clearly-definable topic... > This requirement > seems particularly odd when stated by someone whose stated concern is the > a minimization of total net volume, and who objects to new newsgroups > on the basis that they might (heaven forbid!) provide a forum for articles > that might not get otherwise posted. That is EXACTLY why you have to demonstrate a need first! That shows that you would NOT, in fact, create a home for articles that wouldn't otherwise get posted because THEY ARE ALREADY GETTING POSTED! >If net.bizarre proves anything at all, > it is that the last thing we need is another newsgroup with a *demonstrated > volume* of postings! net.bizarre is a PERFECT illustration of why the "demonstrated need" criterium is so important. These postings are in fact articles that would not have been posted if the group had not been created. The "demonstrated volume" of which you speak occured AFTER the group's creation; the rules state that the demonstrated need should occur BEFORE creation. Thus, if the rules had been followed the group wouldn't have gotten created and there would have been LESS traffic on the net as a result. > At another point, Spafford notes that: > > > Creating a newsgroup just because > > the topic is interesting is *NOT* something we have had as part of this > > procedure [for creating new groups]. > > In so far as this sentence even makes sense (which it doesn't), it says > that small newsgroups sustaining interesting discussions are absolutely > out of the question. JUST WHAT THE HELL IS THIS NETWORK FOR, ANYWAY??? There is nothing wrong with creating new, interesting discussions. What Spaf's sentence says is that we can't create a new group for every one of them. If you have a topic you want to discuss, fine. Post an article on it in a related group. If there truly ISN'T a related group (which I highly doubt; I challenge you to come up with a topic that isn't at least marginally related to that of an existing newsgroup), use net.misc, that's what it is for. IF an ongoing discussion starts, THEN suggest creating a newsgroup for it. If it doesn't, then the newsgroup wasn't needed in the first place. > So why not make it a mailing list? As has been pointed out in this > forum repeatedly, it is often the case that far more people want to read > a newsgroup than to write it. It's also worth pointing out that good > postings require thought, and thought takes time, so in a newsgroup > containing thoughtful discussion, the volume will inevitably be relatively > low. Volume in EXISTING groups is not the point. We're talking about creation of NEW groups here. > Another Spafford objection to creation of new newsgroups which seems partially > reasonable at first blush is that locally written software is breaking > because it's running out of space. > ...Adjusting it for more groups, should > that become necessary (it hasn't) is simply a matter of changing a number > in a header file and typing 'make'. I have *no sympathy* for anyone whose > software would require more work than this. *NONE*. Nor do I. I hate it when my articles get lost because someone was too lazy to upgrade. So, I might agree that ONE of his points was shot down, but that does not change the fact that the proper procedure was NOT followed when net.internat and net.bizarre were created. Therefore, they should be removed. > As such, I have noticed (just today) new newsgroups called > (of all things) net.internat and net.misc.coke. Plainly, there are people > out there (like me) who aren't usually terribly vocal in this forum, but > nevertheless resent being screwed over by the gods. Two suggestions: 1) follow proper procedure when you create your groups, so that the "gods" won't be tempted to "screw you over"; and 2) don't post to or try to read groups that were not created by the proper procedure, because they cannot be expected to stay around. >The result of this > situation will probably be reminiscent of the early days of net.bizarre: > people attempting to carry on a discussion on newsgroups which are flitting > in and out of existence on a daily basis. This is annoying to all concerned, > those trying to sustain the group and those trying to destroy it alike. Tough. If those trying to create the group had followed the proper procedure in creating it, it wouldn't be "flitting in and out of existence". > At the very least, it would be nice to avoid this situation by declaring > a moratorium on the removal of groups until there is a genuine, rational, > net-wide consensus on how to proceed. That's *net-wide*, not majority > vote of the backbone cabal. I think you are being very unrealistic here. While we are waiting for the netwide vote, who in the hell do you think is paying the phone bills? What you are trying to do will probably force the "backbone cabal" into refusing to carry the groups on their sites, thereby effectively killing the group, but it's even worse than that; there will be "local pockets" of the group in existence, and people will continue to post articles there, unaware that most of the net won't get to see it. It is to prevent THAT situation that the "backbone cabal" sends out the "rmgroup" messages for groups that they have decided not to carry. If you still want a local group, fine; create a local group. The "backbone cabal" has zero control over any local groups you create. The FACT is that you CAN'T have a netwide group without the cooperation of the backbone sites. > (p.s. If traffic on the backbone is such a problem, why not simply improve > connectivity to eliminate the backbone? This is a *solution* which could > be implemented by *local* decision of backbone sites to shuck some connections, > and *local* decisions at other sites to add new ones. Any takers?) I agree completely. If you don't like what the backbone is doing, arrange your own connections to other parts of the country. Then YOU will be paying the phone bills so YOU will get to decide what groups to carry and pay for. I'd be curious to see if there are, in fact, any "takers". > -- > Robert Thau --- The *Young* Curmudgeon. --Greg -- {ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!noao | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!noao} !hao!woods CSNET: woods@NCAR ARPA: woods%ncar@CSNET-RELAY
ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (10/24/85)
> > It seems that Gene Spafford has recently taken to reorganizing USENET > to suit his tastes. At first, he simply deleted a number of small, > inoffensive newsgroups which had practically no traffic anyway. But now he has gone out and created a whole shit load of mod.groups that have no readership potential. WHY? He has carefully hidden this effort in his stated effort of moving all the fa groups to be mod groups. Well I'm an ARPANET user and none of that mod.computers.* shit exists. He contradicts himself on his policies of list creation. The traffic from these idiotic group creation messages and the empty directories that they have started alone is probably a significant load on the symbiosis of the net. > Recently, however, Spafford has taken it upon himself to delete two > thriving, busy newsgroups --- net.internat and net.bizarre. The case > of net.internat is especially distressing, as this newsgroup's > signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore undreamt of on | Annoying yes, but not too distressing. As I pointed out the last time he tried to deep-six an thriving group, if you delete it it will just automatically come back. It is only the respect by the individual sites for the net-experts like SPAF that causes these lists to really go away. What is particulary annoying is that SPAF is not special in his powers, any self-righteous person whose willing to offer to serve a lot of other machines in their area (and become a de facto backbone site) can play net censor. I am currently fighting this out with our own management here, who would like nothing more than to quench net.jokes, net.motss, and other groups. If we do not fulfill our committment to not censor the news, we risk losing it all. Hence we pass all the news along without regard to content. -Ron Just what exactly is the "Clouds Project" anyway?
spaf@gatech.CSNET (Gene Spafford) (10/25/85)
(Preface: Normally, I try to avoid responding to petty insults and slander. As a very "visible" person on the net, I've gotten my share of abuse for trying to help keep things going. If I let every little slam get to me, I'd have quit long ago. I realize that there are many little individuals who try to make themselves seem important by writing long and impressive rants about various things. So it is with the article to which I am responding. I would normally ignore this (especially since it is crossposted to net.trash...er, net.flame) However, Mr. Thau makes one or two grievious errors of fact that I would hate others to accept merely due to lack of rebuttal. I will include some semi-flame comments so the low-lifes who view net.flame as a reason for being will have a brief, somewhat bright moment out of this rather dull affair. --EHS) In article <614@h-sc1.UUCP> thau@h-sc1.UUCP (robert thau) writes: >"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." > --- Ralph Waldo Emerson "Controversy equalizes fools and wise men -- and the fools know it" Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. This, of course, is also a snappy quote, and helps explains Mr. Thau's posting, I would guess. >It seems that Gene Spafford has recently taken to reorganizing USENET >to suit his tastes. First error of fact. Were I to be reorganizing it to suit my tastes, there would be only a few unmoderated "net" groups, considerably more regional groups, and some better set of rules and guidelines than currently exists. What I *have* been doing is attempting to make things a little more organized and consistent. And it hasn't been just recently. >(...But what does small global volume (1-2 messages per week) add up to?) Does anyone know where Mr. Thau can go (his machine is at Harvard) where they can teach him to add? Multiplication would be helpful too. Then maybe we can continue this chat and talk about phone bills. >Recently, however, Spafford has taken it upon himself to delete two >thriving, busy newsgroups --- net.internat and net.bizarre. The PLO is thriving and busy too, but I don't want them using my machine, nor am I going to pay for their phone calls. Busy is not sufficient justification for existence...except in government civil service jobs. >The case >of net.internat is especially distressing, as this newsgroup's >signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore undreamt of on USENET. One-to-one? (sorry, folks.) >Spaf may not have created the rules he cites, but his *centralized* enforcement >of them, with a literal-mindedness rarely seen outside of fourth-grade >classrooms and the IRS, is something entirely new. Spaf's oft-repeated >hallucination that the New Order already came about three years ago, >and that he is simply "continuing to maintain" it (a direct quote), >by the power vested in him by nobody in particular, is simply wrong. No comment. ("By dint of railing at idiots we run the risk of becoming idiots ourselves." --Gustave Flaubert) ...naw, I can't resist. Why did you combine the 4th grade and the IRS in that comparison? Did you find the 4th grade particularly taxing? >I was here too. Right. And we have all noticed how you have worked at maintaining a major news feed, and justified the costs to your administration. We've noted how you've helped write and debug the news software, maintain the newsgroups, write tutorials for new users, answer thousands of questions by mail, and otherwise contribute to the general welfare. Your many constructive comments and suggestions in groups other than net.flame have been recognized by many. That's why I value your comments so much. >I admit that net.bizarre consists, at this point, >entirely of trash. What I object to is its unilateral deletion by a >cabal of topologically well-placed superusers. Object away. We objected to it remaining. My mail (as of 9pm tonight) is over 20 to 1 in favor of the move. You are one of only 3 people whom I have heard stating objections to it. >A decision not to carry the >newsgroup at any individual site might be marginally "anarchic," if it were >not propagated, but a gaggle of rmgroup messages hit absolutely everybody. gaggle, n. -- a flock of geese, hence a chattering company. (Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, Unabridged) ...hit EVERYONE? My lord, what happens to news when it gets to your machine? Flocks of geese attacking your users! No wonder you're upset! ...or were you just exaggerating a mite? >In any case, if the decision were truly a local one, there would have >been no need to inform the network as a whole, at length, in net.announce. You're objecting to us notifying the user community about what we did and why? Hmmm, then I guess we could have avoided some of your tirade if we had tried to do it in secret. That's a mighty nice philosophy you have there. Or maybe you objected to the use of net.announce? What would have been your choice -- net.rec.birds? The purpose of net.announce is: "Moderated, general announcements of interest to all." Oh, okay, maybe you're right -- it probably wasn't of interest to a few people. Also, whoever said it was a local decision? (You did, right there -- I read it myself. And you were wrong.) It had been discussed in net.news.group about a month ago, and in mail with all 26+ backbone admins, plus comments in other newsgroups. >Also, while the net.announce posting on the subject contained a number of >helpful hints on setting up an alternate backbone and so forth, Spaf's real >feelings on the matter seem to be summed up by the first paragraph, >which says in full, without qualification, "Net.bizarre is going to go away." I should have said, "Net.bizarre is maybe going away"? Was I wrong? >Postings of this sort, no matter what the content, are symptomatic of >somebody trying to take control. Hah! I'm crazy, but I'm not THAT crazy. Why would anyone want "control" of this net? In fact, I don't think "control" can even be defined in this context, let alone realized. You have never met me or conversed with me on *anything* (to my knowledge) -- how can you derive such a conclusion, other than as a paranoid fantasy? >More peculiar is Spafford's contention that established procedures were not >followed in the creation of net.bizarre. The initial create messages >were indeed wildcats, but subsequently there *was* a discussion on >net.news.group, which *did* result in a consensus. What's the gripe? Major error of fact. It wasn't consensus -- it was resignation. We gave up sending out "rmgroup" messages in hopes that the group would die out on its own or we could find a way of making a "rmgroup" stick. >Equally peculiar is Spafford's claim that net.internat was started as >a wildcat newsgroup. As postings on net.internat itself have made clear, >the group was mandated at an EUUG meeting. EUUG != Usenet. Mandates have little meaning without control. (aha! Maybe that is the "cabal" seeking control which has you so worried?) >Its cancellation is even more peculiar. On the basis of Spaf's own >postings, this group seems to be the summum bonum: a technical group >(easy to justify to management) with a relatively small, but nontrivial >volume, in which over 50% of the postings have something new and interesting >to say. Technical to you. Relatively small compared to net.flame. New and interesting to you. You != Usenet. >Compare that to net.unix. (Or has it improved since I unsubscribed?) (Cheap shot for the net.flamers: Not "since", "because") Net.unix is for beginners to ask questions. To the more experienced users, those sometimes seem trivial or very naive. What do you have against novices? Just what do you believe to be wrong with the group? >However, we only truly arrive in tripped-out looking-glass electric kool >aid wonderland when we examine Spafford's ideas on how a newsgroup *should* >come into being. (Another for the flamers: If you have difficulty adding (as above), I suppose even tying your shoes might bring on such an attitude. Or is it a complication of your paranoia?) >Ignoring the fact that moderated groups so far >seem half-successful at best,... If you mean half of them have been successful, maybe I can agree. It depends on your view of success. >...moderation implies central control, the evils >of which are by now apparent. It does? They are? That conclusion only comes to people attempting to tie their shoes, Robert. >If the net is going >to remain worthwhile as more people sign on, newsgroup >creation has got to get more flexible, not more rigid. And how long will the net last when the load finally causes more backbone sites to drop out? Flexible creation is not the complete answer. It may be part of the answer, but it certainly is not correct all by itself. >Another Spafford objection to creation of new newsgroups which seems partially >reasonable at first blush is that locally written software is breaking >because it's running out of space. Well, I've written my own software. >It runs (more or less) on a PDP-11. Adjusting it for more groups, should >that become necessary (it hasn't) is simply a matter of changing a number >in a header file and typing 'make'. I have *no sympathy* for anyone whose >software would require more work than this. *NONE*. Great! I'm glad that you have written such software and are going to document and distribute it to every net site that needs it, and that you'll handle bug fixes and upgrades, and you'll make sure that it fits into memory on *every* machine that needs to run it. Gee, maybe you aren't such a jerk after all. >One final note. I am one of the recipients of mail to the 'usenet' alias >on tardis.ARPA. As such, I have noticed (just today) new newsgroups called >(of all things) net.internat and net.misc.coke. Plainly, there are people >out there (like me) who aren't usually terribly vocal in this forum, but >nevertheless resent being screwed over by the gods. Ahem. I don't think I want to hear about you being "screwed over" by any gods. I hope that they're at least humanoid gods. As to the "newgroup" messages, if you bothered to see the followup, it was a mistake caused by a faulty shell file. It was not an attempt to recreate the groups. >At the very least, it would be nice to avoid this situation by declaring >a moratorium on the removal of groups until there is a genuine, rational, >net-wide consensus on how to proceed. That's *net-wide*, not majority >vote of the backbone cabal. It isn't a cabal. (Nor is it a gaggle.) If you'll go back and read my article again, you'll see that I suggested that just such a discussion be started in net.news. If we declare a moratorium on deletions, we should also declare one on creations, too. Lauren Weinstein has been suggesting the same to me for a while now. >(p.s. If traffic on the backbone is such a problem, why not simply improve >connectivity to eliminate the backbone? This is a *solution* which could >be implemented by *local* decision of backbone sites to shuck some connections, >and *local* decisions at other sites to add new ones. Any takers?) Good move! Suggest something and then ask someone else to do it. That is precisely the attitude that causes us most of our problems netwide. There are too many individuals suggesting great things but doing nothing themselves -- except complain at length. USENET: "Those who can, try. Those who can't, bitch and moan mightily about the ones who try." I've directed followups to net.flame where they belong. -- Gene "sometime in 1986" Spafford The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332 CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA uucp: ...!{akgua,decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!spaf
frith@trwrdc.UUCP (Lord Frith) (10/25/85)
In article <614@h-sc1.UUCP> thau@h-sc1.UUCP (robert thau) writes: > > To deal directly with some of Spaf's more obnoxious claims: the deletion of > net.bizarre does *not* represent "traditional USENET anarchy at its finest," > nor even at its lowest. I agree. There was no point made in deleting net.internat or net.bizarre. I vote to bring them back. After all.... this IS an anarchy.
bobh@pedsgd.UUCP (Bob Halloran) (10/25/85)
In article <1817@hao.UUCP> woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes: >> Equally peculiar is Spafford's claim that net.internat was started as >> a wildcat newsgroup. As postings on net.internat itself have made clear, >> the group was mandated at an EUUG meeting. > > Since when does EUUG get to make worldwide decisions? If that's the case, >let them create eur.internat. Also, consensus reached at a meeting does >not fit in ANYWHERE in the criteria for newsgroup formation. At least READ >the goddam rules before you start this kind of argument. If consensus reached at a continental conference of system users, which continent happened to NOT be North America, is insufficient to justify creation of a technical newsgroup for issues of software development for non-North-American environments, then how the deletable-expletive can a consensus of a dozen-odd sysops justify the removal of such a group? Or their decision to re-arrange groups (fa.* to mod.*); I seem to recall a general reaction of 'Huh?!' when it was announced this summer, and when someone asked, the response was 'Oh, we decided on that at the BOF meeting at Usenix'. If the backbone cabal can make worldwide decisions to boink traffic, I see no reason why an official user's organization cannot make a decision to generate some. As to restricting it to Europe, there is also the issue of Australasian distribution, and for my part, I want to know what the non-NorthAm users are looking for. Bob Halloran Sr MTS, Perkin-Elmer DSG ============================================================================= UUCP: {decvax, ucbvax, most Action Central}!vax135\ {topaz, pesnta, princeton}!petsd!pedsgd!bobh USPS: 106 Apple St M/S 305, Tinton Falls NJ 07724 DDD: (201) 758-7000 Disclaimer: My opinions are my own. Quote: "Delay is preferable to error." - Thomas Jefferson
frith@trwrdc.UUCP (Lord Frith) (10/25/85)
I agree that net.bizarre and net.internat SHOULD have been created in the usual Netwnews fashion HOWEVER the intent of the following fills me with fear and loathing. It strikes me as yet another example of one person or group of persons attempting to assert their doctrine over the entire community.... In article <1817@hao.UUCP> woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes: >> >> Recently, however, Spafford has taken it upon himself to delete two >> thriving, busy newsgroups --- net.internat and net.bizarre. The case >> of net.internat is especially distressing, as this newsgroup's >> signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore undreamt of on USENET. > > The content of the groups is not the issue. These groups were created > without going through the proper procedure which has been WELL DOCUMENTE. > We simply cannot continue to let every bozo who thinks his topic is of > interest and gets 10 people to agree with him create a newsgroup. And I suppose that the privelage to create newsgroups should be reserved to the system administrators so that those obnoxious bozos won't propagate their drivel? Who is this "we" that you speak of? Is this the royal "we." Do you speak for all site administrators or is this your own personal creedo? >> On top of the fact that two busy newsgroups are going away, the fundamental >> character of the net is being changed, I think, for the worse. > > You are, of course, entitled to hold your own opinion. I even agree with it. > But, we have to wake up and face reality: we can NO LONGER AFFORD to allow > anyone to post whatever they want whenever they want. It just isn't practical > any more. We have two choices: do something about it (i.e. change "the > character of the net") or let the net collapse under its own weight. I know > which of those choices *I* prefer. How about you? I fully disagree with your assertion that "we" cannot allow just anyone to post whatever they want because it isn't "practical." The existance of the net is NOT dependent upon how practical or effecient you might perceive it to be. It is reliant only upon generous backbone sites that will shell out the bucks for long-distance high-volume calls. I doubt the net will ever "collapse" under it's own weight as long as there are people to post articles and people who will read them. >> Spaf may not have created the rules he cites, but his *centralized* >> enforcement of them... > > ...is absolutely mandatory. If there isn't enforcement of the rules from > somewhere, people won't obey them. And since WHEN is it necessary to beat people over the heads and force them to obey a centralized set of bureacratic rules? Usenet "rules" are actually guidelines for use and were never made to be enforced. If so then we would already have a centralized bureacracy pontificating over our every action. Perhaps the fact that people WON'T obey tells you that you shouldn't be expecting them to do so. And how can we trust any central body of administrators to perform the will of the community any better than the community itself? >> What I object to is its unilateral deletion by a cabal of topologically >> well-placed superusers. > > Tough. "topologically well-placed" sites are also the ones who PAY for most > of it. If you want to foot our phone bill for net.bizarre, fine. If not, > then don't tell us what we should and shouldn't be willing to pay for. What you are willing or not willing to pay for effects sites down the pike that rely on you for news. How about being a little more considerate of the needs of people in general? Your site may pay the bills, but that doesn't mean you can ignore the needs of everyone else. >> In any case, if the decision were truly a local one, there would have >> been no need to inform the network as a whole, at length, in net.announce. > > It wasn't a local one. It's high time people start following the rules. The > net is now simply too big for TOTAL anarchy. If you don't like the rules, > that's a separate issue. Submit articles asking to change them. Perhaps lots > of people agree with you. The present set of rules was indeed agreed upon > years ago; it's a pity we didn't enforce them then, as it wouldn't be so > difficult to do so now. There are those words again... "we" and "enforced." May I suggest that the rules of the net be enforced IN SOFTWARE according to a commonly held set of rules? Voting could be accomplished automatically. That would make a fun project. >> Postings of this sort, no matter what the content, are symptomatic of >> somebody trying to take control. > > That's like saying the police officer who arrested you is also responsible > for making the laws. That isn't so. By your own admission, Spafford did not > make the rules up himself. He's just enforcing them. But Spafford alone doesn't have a mandate from the community to enforce them. The police officer does. Looks to me like you folks are holding tenaciously to the letter of the law but not to it's spirit. Does the wildcat creation of a set of useful newsgroups justify the almost punitive action of removing them? > I couldn't disagree more. The major problem with the net right now is > simple: TOO MUCH TRAFFIC. New groups increase traffic; that is a fact. > We have to SLOW DOWN the rate of growth. Newsgroup creation needs to become > MORE controlled, not less. No no no no no no! Slowing down the rate of growth is NOT the same as excersising control over newsgroup creation. You regulate flow by adapting the network topology to the flow. Build in more redundancy and coordinate calls between sites more effectivly. By controlling newsgroup creation you also control newsgroup content. > net.bizarre is a PERFECT illustration of why the "demonstrated need" > criterium is so important. These postings are in fact articles that would > not have been posted if the group had not been created. The "demonstrated > volume" of which you speak occured AFTER the group's creation; the rules > state that the demonstrated need should occur BEFORE creation. Thus, if the > rules had been followed the group wouldn't have gotten created and there > would have been LESS traffic on the net as a result. But this is like saying that we should know the utlitarian value of something before using it. This often is not the case. I agree that the Usenet procedures should have been adhered to. I do NOT think that the removal of net.bizarre or net.internat was justified since it kow-tows to the letter of an informal law. >> The result of this situation will probably be reminiscent of the early >> days of net.bizarre: people attempting to carry on a discussion on >> newsgroups which are flitting in and out of existence on a daily >> basis. This is annoying to all concerned, those trying to sustain the >> group and those trying to destroy it alike. > > Tough. If those trying to create the group had followed the proper procedure > in creating it, it wouldn't be "flitting in and out of existence". The only reason newsgroups are "flitting OUT of existance" is because some site administrator thinks he has to enforce the rules to the letter or the world will come crashing down around our heads. So what if the rules were bent? Instead of heavy-handed CENTRAL administration I suggest a more reasonable approach... like educating people or enhancing the software to facilitate the structure that the entire community thinks is desirable.
roger@celtics.UUCP (Roger Klorese) (10/25/85)
Take your toys and go home, then. Or do the intelligent thing and make your sites call you. -- ... "What were you expecting, rock'n'roll?" Roger B.A. Klorese Celerity Computing, 40 Speen St., Framingham, MA 01701, (617) 872-1772 UUCP: seismo!harvard!bu-cs!celtics!roger ARPA: celtics!roger@bu-cs.ARPA
dave@onfcanim.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (10/25/85)
To me, something seems slightly odd about the "sufficient traffic in other groups" criterion for creation of a new newsgroup. An example is "net.digital". Every once in a while someone proposes starting this group, and it usually ends up vetoed because of the argument that there is little if any current traffic that should go in such a group. Yet, does anyone dispute that there would be some traffic if the group existed? Not a large amount, and not likely the "ongoing discussion" that seems necessary to generate enough traffic to start up a group. But the group *would* be useful if created - how else to get in touch with other people with skills and interests in that area? (Surely you don't seriously suggest that people read net.misc looking for technical articles?) I'm sure there are even better examples of groups that could have a useful role in USENET, even if their traffic averaged over time was quite small. I remember when I started reading USENET (1981) that creation of a new group required little more than a group of people who were interested in discussing a particular subject. I *liked* that. Of course, few people were worried about bandwidth then. If I recall correctly, when the "rules" about requiring a concensus, and existing traffic, were first introduced, it was due to concern about software that could handle no more than a certain arbitrary number of total newsgroups, not for reasons of discouraging traffic. Now, the reasoning given for enforcing the current creation rules is one of limiting backbone traffic. But is this a group that the backbone sites would mind carrying? Its content would likely be largely technical; it would likely be of assistance to a number of people on the net in carrying out their jobs. Contrast this with net.flame, or net.abortion, or net.origins, which were created because of overwhelming discussion volumes in other groups, yet I cannot imagine anyone arguing that they are "useful" in the same sense as a net.digital (or net.internat) would be. What I would like to see is pruning of current high-volume low-content groups as utzoo has recently done, in order to retain enough bandwidth so that the creation of "useful" groups can be *encouraged*, rather than discouraged. Of course this requires people to make subjective judgements of what is "useful", and thus open themselves to charges of unfairness. Thus a scheme based on entirely objective measures such as "sufficient traffic" is appealing for its apparent fairness. But I will happily trade the freedom to post an argument to net.flame or net.abortion for the freedom to *create new groups* on potentially-interesting topics. And on a net whose content seems to be restricted by backbone bandwidth, it seems that you can't have both "freedoms" at once. Now, the people ultimately responsible for restricting bandwidth are the site administrators. I'm very interested in their comments on this. Do you think that enforced stagnation of newsgroups (restricting new groups) is a good solution to increasing traffic? Any other comments? I don't wish to propose how to alter the current "rules" on newsgroup creation and forwarding. I just want to engender some discussion of where we want USENET to head in the future. Dave Martindale P.S. I have been a news administrator on various machines for the past four years, and have both a personal and "professional" interest in what happens to USENET.
rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson) (10/26/85)
In article <446@brl-sem.ARPA> ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) writes: >and other groups. If we do not fulfill our committment to not censor >the news, we risk losing it all. Hence we pass all the news along without >regard to content. At this point in USENET's evolution, if we \DO/ fulfill that 'committment' we are \guaranteed/ to lose it all. Get your head out of the sand -- we have sites out there with phone bills of over $100,000 a month (an extremely unusual and generous case, I'll admit). Over 2 years ago I dropped all news feeds except those I could contact on Cornet (AT&T internal corporate telephone network) due to management pressure. And we [were] "THE PHONE COMPANY"! After that, I started getting hassles for tying up the Cornet lines after 5pm when noone (at this location, anyway) is even here! My immediate supervisor stepped in and told them that it was a valuable part of our group's education and public source procurement. We've got to do something, and we're lucky to have the Spaf spearheading a lot of it. I don't agree with everything that he says/does (rmgroup of net.internat, for instance), but he is getting things moving in the right direction. I'd post all the letters that went around between us backbone admins and Spaf, but that article would be VERY large indeed -- the removal of net.bizarre in particular was NOT spur-of-the-moment and was NOT a Spaf-only phenomena. -- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj ...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj
fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU (Erik E. &) (10/27/85)
Let's get something straight: while the USENET has been discussed at BOF meetings at the various USENIX Conferences, there has NEVER been an action taken on the network with out the usual procedure of building consensus on the network itself. One such discussion which received notice was the one regarding the proposed removal of net.general. A vote was taken at the meeting in which the majority of people present were in favor of removal. However, it was put to the network itself in net.news.group thereafter, and the result was that we still have net.general. No UNIX conference (be it EUUG or USENIX or /usr/group) is large enough that it can constitute a quorum of USENET members, and therefore no such meeting can make decisions for the network. The people that you could call the `leading citizens' of the network have always been cognizant of this, and submitted proposals to the network at large, regardless of the outcome of any vote at any specific meeting. As an aside, even if we codified rules for such meetings, there would always be someone feeling disenfranchised because they didn't get their two cents in; this has been my personal observation of several cooperative and volunteer organizations over the last five years. On the other hand, if people don't pay attention to the designated newsgroup for meta-discussions of the network (e.g. net.news.group), then they have only themselves to blame for the state of the network as a whole. Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU
bch@ecsvax.UUCP (Byron C. Howes) (10/28/85)
In article <10819@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU (Erik E. &) writes: >Let's get something straight: while the USENET has been discussed at >BOF meetings at the various USENIX Conferences, there has NEVER been an >action taken on the network with out the usual procedure of building >consensus on the network itself. Horsepuckey, Eric! I was around when mod.movies, mod.motss, mod.singles and a few other mod.... groups were created (H*ll, I was moderator of mod.movies.) There wasn't any vote taken, no consensus gathered, etc. How about net.announce, or net.announce.newusers? Anyone remember a consensus gathered on those? Sorry, I don't buy it. We're trying to rewrite history to justify our own actions. -- Byron Howes System Manager -- NCECS ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch
woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) (10/28/85)
> If the backbone cabal can make > worldwide decisions to boink traffic, I see no reason why an official > user's organization cannot make a decision to generate some. Because the "backbone cabal" PAYS for most of it. The user's organizations do not. --Greg -- {ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!noao | mcvax!seismo | ihnp4!noao} !hao!woods CSNET: woods@NCAR ARPA: woods%ncar@CSNET-RELAY
shaddock@rti-sel.UUCP (Mike Shaddock) (10/29/85)
Well, it seems that once again when someone tries to do something for
the net he gets flamed wildly. Wake up, folks. All Spaf is trying to
do is keep the creation/deletion of newsgroups even-handed. I am
amazed that Mr. Wood was about the only person who noticed it. These
groups were never created by the rules (yes, I regularly read
net.news.*), so they should not be carried, regardless of content. I
personally see no reason to have net.bizarre, since it is mostly full
of trash, or so it was when I finally got sick of it. I have trouble
keeping up in worthwhile newsgroups, much less trying to follow
something like net.bizarre. Perhaps, though, we should do as Lauren
Weinstein has suggested, that is, declare a moratorium on newsgroup
creations *and* deletions until the smoke clears. The net is getting
overloaded, though, so we need to do something soon.
As for net.internat:
Should net.internat have been nuked?
Yes.
Should it be created following the guildlines?
Yes again, but probably as a moderated group, since a lot of the
current articles have been of the "Yes, I agree with you" / "No, I
disagree" type (should sound familiar to readers of this group :-) ).
EUUG (or whatever) mandated that it be created, let some people from it
moderate it.
Keep at it Spaf, don't let the hyenas get you down.
--
Mike Shaddock {decvax,seismo,ihnp4}!mcnc!rti-sel!shaddockins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Kenneth Adam Arromdee) (10/29/85)
In article <10819@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU (Erik E. &) writes: >On the other hand, if people don't pay attention to the designated >newsgroup for meta-discussions of the network (e.g. net.news.group), >then they have only themselves to blame for the state of the network as >a whole. > Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU I must have said it quite a few times already, but I am NOT PERMITTED to read net.news.group. Nor is anyone else at Hopkins. I can't very well be blamed for not reading something if I am not permitted to read it! How about cross-posting all discussions about the fate of a group to that group? Come on, it's not that hard! -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you know the alphabet up to 'k', you can teach it up to 'k'. Kenneth Arromdee BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS CSNET: ins_akaa@jhunix.CSNET ARPA: ins_akaa%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA UUCP: ...{decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!aplcen!jhunix!ins_akaa
woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) (10/30/85)
> It strikes me as yet another example of one > person or group of persons attempting to assert their doctrine over the > entire community.... Why is that? Because it doesn't agree with what YOU want? It works both ways, you know. > And I suppose that the privelage to create newsgroups should be reserved > to the system administrators so that those obnoxious bozos won't propagate > their drivel? Who is this "we" that you speak of? Is this the royal "we." > Do you speak for all site administrators or is this your own personal creedo? I suggest that before you flame me in public you check your facts. I am not a site administrator. I am merely doing what everyone else is doing, which is stating my opinion. Anyone who reads this newsgroup is entitled to do so. By "we", I meant EVERYONE on the net. If you read it differently, then you read what you wanted me to have said, not what I DID say. > I fully disagree with your assertion that "we" cannot allow just > anyone to post whatever they want because it isn't "practical." The > existance of the net is ... reliant only upon generous backbone > sites that will shell out the bucks for long-distance high-volume > calls. And I think you are engaging in wishful thinking. Phone bills ARE mounting to the point where groups ARE being cut by backbone sites. If we do not come to some kind of agreement on how to limit net traffic, then the net really WILL be run by the "backbone cabal" deciding what they can afford to pay for. Phone bills CANNOT increase without bound. There HAS to be a limit SOMEWHERE. The only question is, what is the limit and how shall it be imposed. > And since WHEN is it necessary to beat people over the heads and force them to > obey a centralized set of bureacratic rules? Usenet "rules" are actually > guidelines for use and were never made to be enforced. ... > Perhaps the fact that people WON'T obey tells you that you shouldn't be > expecting them to do so. Perhaps you are right. But, if we don't come to an agreement on SOME kind of rules, then traffic will continue to increase at the alarming rate it currently is. And if whatever rules are agreed upon are not enforced, then they are a joke. How do YOU propose to limit net traffic, or do you really live on Cloud 9 and think traffic can continue to be unlimited? > And how can we trust any central body of administrators to perform the will > of the community any better than the community itself? Depends on what you mean by "better", doesn't it? In our "free" society, we indeed to have a "central body of administrators performing the will of the community". It's called the Congress, the President and the Supreme Court. The reason we have this is simple: it is impractical to give EVERYONE input into EVERY decision that has to be made. I think that applies to the net, too, and I believe that whether or not I end up being one of the "central body" or not. > What you are willing or not willing to pay for effects sites down the pike > that rely on you for news. ... Your site may pay the bills, but that > doesn't mean you can ignore the needs of everyone else. We don't. We pass on a lot of articles that I'm fairly sure no one on this site ever reads. But, there has to be a LIMIT. I do not WANT to see the limit imposed by the backbone because of their own personal tastes. That's why I'd much rather see a centralized set of rules that EVERYONE obeys. > May I suggest that the > rules of the net be enforced IN SOFTWARE according to a commonly held set > of rules? Voting could be accomplished automatically. That would make > a fun project. Not a bad idea. I am not opposed to such a suggestion, if it can be implemented. Two questions would have to be answered; first, who is going to write and test the new software, and second, what do we do about sites that refuse to use the new software? > But Spafford alone doesn't have a mandate from the community to enforce > them. The police officer does. I don't think a police officer has any more of a "mandate" than Spaf does. I think a lot of laws shouldn't be on the books, but I can still be arrested for violating them. The fact that some people don't like the current set of rules doesn't necessarily mean there is no "mandate" to enforce them. Perhaps as a result of this discussion we will FIND OUT if there is a mandate to enforce them or not. > Looks to me like you folks are holding > tenaciously to the letter of the law but not to it's spirit. Does the > wildcat creation of a set of useful newsgroups justify the almost > punitive action of removing them? Yes it does, because if the rules aren't enforced THIS time, it will be doubly hard to enforce them NEXT time. And for the record, I am not one of "you folks". > No no no no no no! Slowing down the rate of growth is NOT the same as > excersising control over newsgroup creation. You regulate flow by adapting > the network topology to the flow. Build in more redundancy and coordinate > calls between sites more effectivly. By controlling newsgroup creation you > also control newsgroup content. I do not see that this is the case at all. Anyone can post whatever they want. Nothing is in place to stop them. I do agree that some of the other suggestions in this paragraph might be useful. Let the sites that want net.bizarre arrange their own connections and PAY for it. No problem with that. > But this is like saying that we should know the utlitarian value of something > before using it. This often is not the case. I agree that the Usenet > procedures should have been adhered to. I do NOT think that the removal > of net.bizarre or net.internat was justified since it kow-tows to the letter > of an informal law. What do you think will happen if we do not enforce the letter of the law? I can tell you that; we will then get into endless arguments about whether this or that topic is worthy of an exception to the rules. I personally consider that alternative to be unacceptable. > The only reason newsgroups are "flitting OUT of existance" is because some > site administrator thinks he has to enforce the rules to the letter or the > world will come crashing down around our heads. I happen to agree with him. The recent newsgroup cuts at utzoo is the beginning of the crash. Not only WILL it happen if we don't do something, it has already started. > So what if the rules were bent? What good is having rules if people are allowed to "bend" them? > Instead of heavy-handed CENTRAL administration I suggest a more > reasonable approach... like educating people or enhancing the software > to facilitate the structure that the entire community thinks is desirable. This has been attempted and it has failed. net.announce.newusers was created for this purpose, and yet we STILL have people asking what SO means in net.singles, or what have you, evidence that they did not READ the stuff that was there to "educate" them. And we can't even get sites to upgrade to COMPATIBLE versions of the news software, never mind something that "we" have deemed "better". --Greg -- {ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!noao | mcvax!seismo | ihnp4!noao} !hao!woods CSNET: woods@NCAR ARPA: woods%ncar@CSNET-RELAY
ncx@cheviot.uucp (Lindsay F. Marshall) (10/30/85)
In article <1826@hao.UUCP> woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes: > > Because the "backbone cabal" PAYS for most of it. The user's organizations >do not. > Uh uh, as I have pointed out several times before this isnt true everywhere. In the UK we share the cost between all the sites - perhaps its time something like that happened "over there". Remember USA != world (for the zillionth time) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Lindsay F. Marshall, Computing Lab., U of Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, UK ARPA : lindsay%cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk@ucl-cs.arpa JANET : lindsay@uk.ac.newcastle.cheviot UUCP : <UK>!ukc!cheviot!lindsay -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
halle@hou2b.UUCP (J.HALLE) (10/30/85)
Please do not kill net.politics, net.religion, net.philosophy, net.abortion, or any other "soapbox" groups. They serve a very important purpose: keeping the net clear of junk so that others can read what they want without having to wade through the (insert favorite expletive). Without these groups, net.flame, net.misc, and others will be flooded even worse than they are now. And don't say, "Use the n key." Often the titles are misleading or incomplete. Besides, why waste the time reading the header when it should be unnecessary. Instead of removing the groups, why not make it impossible to cross-post from them. Thus something posted to net.politics, net.flame, and net.misc, e.g., will only go to net.politics.
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (10/31/85)
> And I suppose that the privelage to create newsgroups should be reserved > to the system administrators so that those obnoxious bozos won't propagate > their drivel? Who is this "we" that you speak of? Is this the royal "we." > Do you speak for all site administrators or is this your own personal creedo? He certainly speaks for a lot of us, especially on the backbone. > The existance of the net is NOT dependent upon how practical or effecient > you might perceive it to be. It is reliant only upon generous backbone > sites that will shell out the bucks for long-distance high-volume calls. In other words, it is very much dependent on how practical and efficient the backbone sites perceive it to be. Speaking as site admin of one of them, on the whole I support what Spaf is doing. The disparity between our generosity and the demands being placed on it is growing. > I doubt the net will ever "collapse" under it's own weight as > long as there are people to post articles and people who will read them. And sites that will pay to transmit them -- don't forget that. Collapse of the network is something that most of us consider a serious possibility. > And since WHEN is it necessary to beat people over the heads and force them to > obey a centralized set of bureacratic rules? ... Actually, since the beginning. The semi-orderly structure of newsgroups you see before you was not a happy accident. > Perhaps the fact that people WON'T obey tells you that you shouldn't be > expecting them to do so. Fine, if they won't pay any attention to us, why should we subsidize them? Do you really want all the backbone sites to say "to hell with it" and stop forwarding news? Bear in mind that there will be few volunteers lining up for the privilege of paying exorbitant phone bills for your benefit. > And how can we trust any central body of administrators to perform the will > of the community any better than the community itself? Who's talking about the will of the community here? The will of the community will not pay my phone bills. > What you are willing or not willing to pay for effects sites down the pike > that rely on you for news. How about being a little more considerate of > the needs of people in general? Your site may pay the bills, but that > doesn't mean you can ignore the needs of everyone else. And whose needs are you ignoring? Maybe we have more important uses for that money than paying phone bills with it. (Incidentally, don't you think that the starving people in Ethiopia have more need for, say, the top half of your paycheck than you do?) > There are those words again... "we" and "enforced." May I suggest that the > rules of the net be enforced IN SOFTWARE according to a commonly held set > of rules? Voting could be accomplished automatically. That would make > a fun project. Actually, it would make a large and difficult project. That aside, I am all in favor of this if there is a fee of, say, $20 per vote, the proceeds to go towards the backbone's phone bills. If you aren't going to help with our financial problems, don't expect us to live and die by your votes. That would be -- to correctly apply a frequently-misused word -- fascism. That is, the notion that we should cooperate for the common good no matter how much it hurts, whether we like it or not. I am quite sure that the net is capable of voting itself unlimited quantities of bread and circuses at our expense. Forget it. > But Spafford alone doesn't have a mandate from the community to enforce > them. The police officer does. ... He doesn't? Prove it. Please don't say that he hasn't won an election or something like that -- neither has your local police department. If a vote really were held to confirm your police department's mandate, I suspect it would win... and I suspect Spaf would too. Considering that the alternative (in both cases) is anarchic collapse. > ... Does the > wildcat creation of a set of useful newsgroups justify the almost > punitive action of removing them? No (although I hope you aren't claiming net.bizarre is useful!), but it does justify firmly telling them to go back and go through the proper procedures (with the associated chance of failure) just like everyone else. > No no no no no no! Slowing down the rate of growth is NOT the same as > excersising control over newsgroup creation. You regulate flow by adapting > the network topology to the flow. Build in more redundancy and coordinate > calls between sites more effectivly. By controlling newsgroup creation you > also control newsgroup content. Right, improving the overall signal/noise ratio at the expense of the trash. Please explain what you mean by "adapting the network topology" and "build in more redundancy" (the redundancy in the existing net improves reliability at the cost of still higher phone bills!) and "coordinate calls more effectively". Ten to one we've heard it all before, and it doesn't work. Or else it demands still deeper pockets on our parts. I agree that slowing down the growth is not the same as controlling newsgroup creation, because the latter probably will not suffice for the former. It's probably a necessary first step, though. > But this is like saying that we should know the utlitarian value of something > before using it. Yup, it's like saying that I should know the usefulness of something before I spend a lot of money on it. What a terrible thought. How many mink tea cozies do you own? > The only reason newsgroups are "flitting OUT of existance" is because some > site administrator thinks he has to enforce the rules to the letter or the > world will come crashing down around our heads. Yeah, and in the long run, overall, he's probably right. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
dfh@scirtp.UUCP (David F. Hinnant) (10/31/85)
> In article <10819@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU (Erik E. &) writes: > >Let's get something straight: while the USENET has been discussed at > >BOF meetings at the various USENIX Conferences, there has NEVER been an > >action taken on the network with out the usual procedure of building > >consensus on the network itself. > > Horsepuckey, Eric! I was around when mod.movies, mod.motss, mod.singles > and a few other mod.... groups were created (H*ll, I was moderator of > mod.movies.) There wasn't any vote taken, no consensus gathered, etc. > > How about net.announce, or net.announce.newusers? Anyone remember a > consensus gathered on those? Sorry, I don't buy it. We're trying > to rewrite history to justify our own actions. > -- > > Byron Howes > System Manager -- NCECS > ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch Bullwinkle Byron! If you're going to use an example, use a relevant one. I don't think the stork created net.announce overnight. I remember some discussion, though not a whole lot. Why? Net.announce.newusers? Who on the the net would object to a newsgroup that would keep verbage out of other groups? Besides, who reads net.announce.newusers on a regular basis? Net.announce was created (as I remember after some discussion) to clean up net.general (which didn't work). And I presume that *poof* mod.movies was created by an unknown net god and spaketh thus "Hey, who wants to be moderator of this neat group?" Eric is generally right. By and large most new groups were created after a concensus was obtained. A concensus should be obtained before those groups are deleted. -- David Hinnant SCI Systems, Inc. {decvax, akgua}!mcnc!rti-sel!scirtp!dfh
piet@mcvax.UUCP (Piet Beertema) (10/31/85)
>The case of net.internat is especially distressing, as this >newsgroup's signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore >undreamt of on USENET. >The content of the groups is not the issue. >But, we have to wake up and face reality: we can NO LONGER AFFORD to allow >anyone to post whatever they want whenever they want. It just isn't practical >any more. We have two choices: do something about it (i.e. change "the >character of the net") or let the net collapse under its own weight. >....desire of a number of people is NOT SUFFICIENT GROUNDS to create >a newsgroup. >Equally peculiar is Spafford's claim that net.internat was starte >as a wildcat newsgroup. As postings on net.internat itself have >made clear, the group was mandated at an EUUG meeting. >Since when does EUUG get to make worldwide decisions? If that's the case, >let them create eur.internat. >Its cancellation is even more peculiar. On the basis of Spaf's own >postings, this group seems to be the summum bonum: a technical group >(easy to justify to management) with a relatively small, but >nontrivial volume, in which over 50% of the postings have something >new and interesting to say. >Once again, the content of the group is not at issue. >New groups increase traffic; that is a fact. Summing up: - a sheer number of people/votes is not enough to create a new group; - the contents of a new group don't justify its creation; - an international forum, like an EUUG meeting (that *not* only Europeans did attend) is not a place to decide about creation of a new group; - (still) only "established need" justifies creation of a new group. Conclusion: there's no way a new group can ever more be created, unless you flood another group on a net already "collapsing under its own weight".... Bullshit! Now first of all leave the narrow viewpoint of a USENET that stops at the boundaries of the United States. It really reaches farther these days, covering a large part of the world. Then 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! It was for these reasons that net.internat was created; true, it didn't follow the established procedures; there's no excuse for that. But the Copenhagen meeting proved that there was need for it, primarily in Europe, but also elsewhere; the discussion following the creation of the group clearly showed that. Of course the group could have been restricted to Europe only by creating it as eunet.internat (we don't know about eur.* groups), but given the wider interest it would have been unwise and very narrow-minded to do so. That's why it came into existence as net.internat. But the rmgroup of net.internat was just as unwise and unnecessary, given the interest it had (and still has). And that's exactly why even some US backbones refused to go along with it, so some or most of you still get it. And if you regret having been cut off: net.internat will be back soon.... -- Piet Beertema, CWI, Amsterdam (piet@mcvax.UUCP)
bch@ecsvax.UUCP (Byron C. Howes) (10/31/85)
In article <534@scirtp.UUCP> dfh@scirtp.UUCP (David F. Hinnant) writes: >> In article <10819@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU (Erik E. &) >> writes: >> >Let's get something straight: while the USENET has been discussed at >> >BOF meetings at the various USENIX Conferences, there has NEVER been an >> >action taken on the network with out the usual procedure of building >> >consensus on the network itself. >> >> Horsepuckey, Eric! I was around when mod.movies, mod.motss, mod.singles >> and a few other mod.... groups were created (H*ll, I was moderator of >> mod.movies.) There wasn't any vote taken, no consensus gathered, etc. > >Bullwinkle Byron! > >If you're going to use an example, use a relevant one. I don't think >the stork created net.announce overnight. I remember some discussion, >though not a whole lot. Why? Net.announce.newusers? Who on the the >net would object to a newsgroup that would keep verbage out of other >groups? Besides, who reads net.announce.newusers on a regular basis? >Net.announce was created (as I remember after some discussion) to clean >up net.general (which didn't work). *You* use a relevant example. I simply said that, contrary to current myth, their have been legitimate groups created without netwide discussion. Eric simply asserted that it had never happend. You *seem* to be agreeing with me. >And I presume that *poof* mod.movies was created by an unknown net god and >spaketh thus "Hey, who wants to be moderator of this neat group?" Other than the fact that the netgod wasn't unknown, that's just about the way it happened. >Eric is generally right. By and large most new groups were created >after a concensus was obtained. A concensus should be obtained before >those groups are deleted. (1) By and large and generally don't count. He said that groups had *never* been created without discussion. (2) We're discussing the legitimacy of the creation of net.internat, not it's deletion. Get some context before you flame. > >-- > David Hinnant > SCI Systems, Inc. > {decvax, akgua}!mcnc!rti-sel!scirtp!dfh -- Byron Howes System Manager -- NCECS ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch
wmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (10/31/85)
> What do you think will happen if we do not enforce the letter of the law? > I can tell you that; we will then get into endless arguments about whether > this or that topic is worthy of an exception to the rules. I personally > consider that alternative to be unacceptable. > --Greg It seems that we have these "endless arguments" already. So maybe it would be most productive to avoid actions that will precipitate even more "endless arguments". Also, "enforcement" of *anything* related to USENET has long been accepted as impossible, hasn't it? Will
dave@inset.UUCP (Dave Lukes) (11/01/85)
In article <1826@hao.UUCP> woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes: >> If the backbone cabal can make >> worldwide decisions to boink traffic, I see no reason why an official >> user's organization cannot make a decision to generate some. > > Because the "backbone cabal" PAYS for most of it. The user's organizations >do not. <<ENTER SARCASTIC MODE>> Are you trying to tell me that every month (quarter, year, ...) the backbone admins all pull out their wallets/chequebooks and pay all the phone & net bills for their sites from their salaries?? WOW!! What WONDERFUL people they must be, and with the amount of mail/news going through the backbones, they must all be totally destitute by now. <<EXIT SARCASTIC MODE>> One little detail that all the backbone admins carefully omit to mention is that it's not THEM PERSONALLY paying, but their EMPLOYERS who pay the bills: were THEY consulted before the removal of net.internat? I would have thought that commercial realities made internationalisation more important than <insert name of your favourite leisure oriented group here>. Also, as has been previously stated, in the UK, we try to SHARE the cost around, thus (hopefully) preventing backbones from being too autocratic. Yours impecuniously, Dave Lukes. -- All opinions, philosophies, dogmas and idiosyncrasies expressed in this article INCLUDING THIS DISCLAIMER, are solely those of the author.
tp@ndm20 (11/01/85)
>(Surely you >don't seriously suggest that people read net.misc looking for technical >articles?) This is a valid point. I and probably others do not read net.misc because it appears devoid of any usefulness. Nobody attempts to start technical discussions there. There are some topics that have no natural home, thus causing the discussion to be split into several groups, thus losing the cohesion it would have if it were in one place. Take the recent request for net.compiler. This came about because compiler issues are being discussed in net.arch and net.lang. There is no clear cut natural home for this topic, and that fact alone hampers the discussion itself. What I propose is a group to be created for miscellaneous technical discussions. I am posting this in net.news and also crossposting to net.news.group, but it is more a matter of a policy decision than just a group request. As far as the rules go, I think there is demonstrated need by the fact that numerous technical discussions exist in inappropriate places. If sufficient people agree with my contention that this is largely due to the lack of a good place for the discussion, that will demonstrate need and support. As for the name, either net.technical or net.misc.technical seem good (probably the latter better illustrates the group's purpose). This would give people a good place to post on technical topics for which the group creation criteria have not been met, such as operating systems, compilers, and internationalization, to name a few recent examples, and give them a fighting chance to demonstrate need (and conversely, failure to demonstrate need should be easier to prove). Closing comment: I support Gene Spafford's actions. We need rules because the net is getting too big (as judged by the people paying the bills). If you don't like the rules, net.news is where to go to change them. They should NOT be ignored, as that may destroy the net. I am still in favor of the SA's voting, with the votes weighted by the number of outgoing news feeds. I am not biased. I have no outgoing feeds. Thanks, Terry Poot Nathan D. Maier Consulting Engineers (214)739-4741 Usenet: ...!{allegra|ihnp4}!convex!smu!ndm20!tp CSNET: ndm20!tp@smu ARPA: ndm20!tp%smu@csnet-relay.ARPA
dfh@scirtp.UUCP (David F. Hinnant) (11/01/85)
> >> Horsepuckey, Eric! I was around when mod.movies, mod.motss, mod.singles > >> and a few other mod.... groups were created (H*ll, I was moderator of > >> mod.movies.) There wasn't any vote taken, no consensus gathered, etc. > > > >Bullwinkle Byron! > >If you're going to use an example, use a relevant one. I don't think > >the stork created net.announce overnight. I remember some discussion, > >though not a whole lot. Why? Net.announce.newusers? Who on the the > >net would object to a newsgroup that would keep verbage out of other > >groups? Besides, who reads net.announce.newusers on a regular basis? > >Net.announce was created (as I remember after some discussion) to clean > >up net.general (which didn't work). > > *You* use a relevant example. I simply said that, contrary to current > myth, their have been legitimate groups created without netwide discussion. > Eric simply asserted that it had never happend. You *seem* to be agreeing > with me. Geesh. Net.announce *is* relevant. Eric was pushing the issue when he said "NEVER". I aggree that "NEVER" is not entirely correct. However, I don't think these minor exceptions matter. Perpetuation of the ideals of group-creationism is wrong and should not be used as an argument, much less a justification. > >And I presume that *poof* mod.movies was created by an unknown net god and > >spaketh thus "Hey, who wants to be moderator of this neat group?" > > Other than the fact that the netgod wasn't unknown, that's just about the way > it happened. I don't really think the "mod" groups count as genuine "news groups" since they are moderated. I see the mod groups more as Arpa-style mailing lists that get posted instead of mailed. Ok, It may have happened that way, but it isn't right. Creation OR deletion of groups without a concensus is still wrong. See above complaint about justification. > >Eric is generally right. By and large most new groups were created > >after a concensus was obtained. A concensus should be obtained before > >those groups are deleted. > > (1) By and large and generally don't count. He said that groups had *never* > been created without discussion. (2) We're discussing the legitimacy of > the creation of net.internat, not it's deletion. Get some context before > you flame. (1) Wumpus pus. By and large does count. On an ad hoc network as large as USENET, "by and large" is the ONLY way things can be done since there is no single controlling entity - nor should there be. (2) Exactly. > Byron Howes > ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch -- David Hinnant SCI Systems, Inc. {decvax, akgua}!mcnc!rti-sel!scirtp!dfh
bch@ecsvax.UUCP (Byron C. Howes) (11/01/85)
In article <535@scirtp.UUCP> dfh@scirtp.UUCP (David F. Hinnant) writes: >Eric was pushing the issue when he said "NEVER". I aggree that "NEVER" is >not entirely correct. However, I don't think these minor exceptions matter. >Perpetuation of the ideals of group-creationism is wrong and should not be >used as an argument, much less a justification. Then we agree that the notion that there has always been a consensus about newsgroup creation or deletion is a myth. Groups with high legitimacy, like net.announce, have been correctly created by fiat -- whether an exception or not -- directly in contradiction to the published procedure for newsgroup creation. >I don't really think the "mod" groups count as genuine "news groups" since >they are moderated. I see the mod groups more as Arpa-style mailing lists >that get posted instead of mailed. Odd. They generate traffic that takes up disk space. They occupy a line in my active file (which occasionally overflows.) They need to have expire run against them. They're subject to newgroup and rmgroup messages like anything else. They have subject matter which may be technical or recreational. Gee, they look just like newsgroups to me. Where does it say in the rules for usenet conduct that the procedure for creating mod.* groups is different than the procedure for creating net.* groups? >Ok, It may have happened that way, but it isn't right. Creation OR deletion >of groups without a concensus is still wrong. See above complaint about >justification. If it the creation of net.announce was so wrong, why didn't you complain then? Why aren't people complaining about the current run of mod.groups being created. Oh yeah. They're different. They're not *real* newsgroups. :-) >On an ad hoc network as large >as USENET, "by and large" is the ONLY way things can be done since there is >no single controlling entity - nor should there be. Then the usenet document is meaningless (we've never reached consensus on it and, in fact, have violated it many times.) Net.internat should not have been rmgrouped. You can't have it both ways. -- Byron Howes System Manager -- NCECS ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch
glenn@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Glenn C. Scott) (11/01/85)
In article <1078@trwrdc.UUCP> frith@trwrdc.UUCP (Lord Frith) writes: > I fully disagree with your assertion that "we" cannot allow just > anyone to post whatever they want because it isn't "practical." The > existance of the net is NOT dependent upon how practical or effecient > you might perceive it to be. It is reliant only upon generous backbone > sites that will shell out the bucks for long-distance high-volume > calls. I doubt the net will ever "collapse" under it's own weight as > long as there are people to post articles and people who will read them. Wanna bet ? The volume of the net is EXACTLY what the backbone sites are concerned about. It seems fairly clear that the volume of the net and the "weight" of the net are synonymous. This volume is what is driving up the multi-thousand dollar phone bills I see every month. The net will certainly collapse if there isn't anyone to pay the costs for your morning feeding of news. > What you are willing or not willing to pay for effects sites down the pike > that rely on you for news. How about being a little more considerate of > the needs of people in general? Your site may pay the bills, but that > doesn't mean you can ignore the needs of everyone else. Hold it right there. SDC volunteered their site as a backbone because we thought USENET was a good thing. We have given our time, money and equipment to help keep it moving. However this free use of our time, money and equipment extends only as far as it does not become a big burden. For us USENET is becoming a burden and it's headed toward becoming a big burden. The liabilities are outweighing the assets. And by the way, we *can* completely ignore the needs of everyone else. After all it's our money and we can spend it where we want. We aren't obligated to being a backbone site. No backbone site is obligated to be a backbone site. I think it's about time for these reactionaries to start putting their money where their mouths are. This is a community -- help support it or shut up. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Glenn Scott System Development Corporation Santa Monica, Califonia 90406 213-820-4111 X5653
sob@neuro1.UUCP (Stan Barber) (11/01/85)
Advance appologies for quoting the whole article. In article <641@ecsvax.UUCP> bch@ecsvax.UUCP (Byron C. Howes) writes: >In article <10819@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU (Erik E. &) writes: >>Let's get something straight: while the USENET has been discussed at >>BOF meetings at the various USENIX Conferences, there has NEVER been an >>action taken on the network with out the usual procedure of building >>consensus on the network itself. > >Horsepuckey, Eric! I was around when mod.movies, mod.motss, mod.singles >and a few other mod.... groups were created (H*ll, I was moderator of >mod.movies.) There wasn't any vote taken, no consensus gathered, etc. > >How about net.announce, or net.announce.newusers? Anyone remember a >consensus gathered on those? Sorry, I don't buy it. We're trying >to rewrite history to justify our own actions. >-- > > Byron Howes > System Manager -- NCECS > ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch I believe the moderated newsgroups are not the same as unmoderated newgroups. This means that the same rules for creating unmoderated newsgroups DO NOT APPLY to moderated newsgroups. As I recall, the proceedure for a moderated group involves discussion in net.news.group and the willingness of someone to be a moderator (and/or a gateway). Perhaps someone could clarify these rules, but I am sure that mod groups are not the issue here. Please do not include items that do not belong. Thank you. -- Stan uucp:{ihnp4!shell,rice}!neuro1!sob Opinions expressed Olan ARPA:sob@rice.arpa here are ONLY mine & Barber CIS:71565,623 BBS:(713)660-9262 noone else's.
campbell@maynard.UUCP (Larry Campbell) (11/02/85)
> In article <1826@hao.UUCP> woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes: > > Because the "backbone cabal" PAYS for most of it. The user's organizations > >do not. > Uh uh, as I have pointed out several times before this isnt true everywhere. > In the UK we share the cost between all the sites - perhaps its time something > like that happened "over there". Remember USA != world (for the zillionth time) > Lindsay F. Marshall, Computing Lab., U of Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, UK How do you handle the accounting for this? And how do you enforce it? This requires centralized administration (SOMEBODY has to compute the bills, and collect them, and send rebates for long-distance calls, etc. etc.). I really don't understand how this can work. -- Larry Campbell decvax!genrad The Boston Software Works, Inc. \ 120 Fulton St. seismo!harvard!wjh12!maynard!campbell Boston MA 02109 / / ihnp4 cbosgd ARPA: maynard.UUCP:campbell@harvard.ARPA
avolio@decuac.UUCP (Frederick M. Avolio) (11/02/85)
In article <773@inset.UUCP>, dave@inset.UUCP (Dave Lukes) writes: > Are you trying to tell me that every month (quarter, year, ...) > the backbone admins all pull out their wallets/chequebooks > and pay all the phone & net bills for their sites from their salaries?? > > One little detail that all the backbone admins carefully omit to mention > is that it's not THEM PERSONALLY paying, but their EMPLOYERS who pay the bills: > were THEY consulted before the removal of net.internat? I suspect that a lot of folks are 1) new to the thought of the large phone bills backbone sites have and 2) how those bills are paid. [*** By the way, Gene just posted the backbone map to mod.maps. Please read it to see what a backbone site is.] It is quite naive to think that the people who really are in charge of paying the phone bills read USENET. In fact, I imagine that many "employers", as you say, would cut the funds almost at once -- or demand that news be cut off -- if they actually saw some of what they are paying for. So, let us not be silly. Many folks are terrified by the thought of their employers reading some of the garbage for which they are paying. Fred
ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Kenneth Adam Arromdee) (11/02/85)
In article <642@hou2b.UUCP> halle@hou2b.UUCP (J.HALLE) writes: >Please do not kill net.politics, net.religion, net.philosophy, >net.abortion, or any other "soapbox" groups. They serve a very >important purpose: keeping the net clear of junk so that others >can read what they want without having to wade through the >(insert favorite expletive). Without these groups, net.flame, >net.misc, and others will be flooded even worse than they are >now. And don't say, "Use the n key." Often the titles are >misleading or incomplete. Besides, why waste the time reading >the header when it should be unnecessary. > >Instead of removing the groups, why not make it impossible to >cross-post from them. Thus something posted to net.politics, >net.flame, and net.misc, e.g., will only go to net.politics. I agree that the groups should stay, but why make it impossible to cross post? That would remove some traffic, but also remove some readers for articles that cover several categories. Anyway, it's not too hard to save a file, then post it separately several times to several newsgroups. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you know the alphabet up to 'k', you can teach it up to 'k'. Kenneth Arromdee BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS CSNET: ins_akaa@jhunix.CSNET ARPA: ins_akaa%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA UUCP: ...{decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!aplcen!jhunix!ins_akaa
gds@mit-eddie.UUCP (Greg Skinner) (11/03/85)
> From: sob@neuro1.UUCP (Stan Barber) > I believe the moderated newsgroups are not the same as unmoderated newgroups. > This means that the same rules for creating unmoderated newsgroups DO NOT > APPLY to moderated newsgroups. But the same rules should apply to them! For example, there have been no demonstrated volume of postings on gould bugs, nor a demonstrated need for them. Therefore, no need for a group to carry them. It seems that the mod groups are legitimate for creation, by virtue of the fact that they are moderated. I suggest that mod groups go through the same criteria for creation that the regular groups do. -- It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under. Greg Skinner (gregbo) {decvax!genrad, allegra, ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gds gds@mit-eddie.mit.edu
dave@circadia.UUCP (David Messer) (11/04/85)
> Instead of removing the groups, why not make it impossible to > cross-post from them. Thus something posted to net.politics, > net.flame, and net.misc, e.g., will only go to net.politics. And for that matter; is cross-posting really necessary at all? A large part of the information flood is caused by people cross-posting to every newsgroup they can think of. For instance, the above newsgroup list (unchanged from the original posting). Net.flame is the worst group for this; virtually every posting in net.flame is cross-posted to the group to which the sender wants to flame. -- David Messer UUCP: ...ihnp4!circadia!dave FIDO: 14/415 (SYSOP)
bch@ecsvax.UUCP (Byron C. Howes) (11/04/85)
In article <644@neuro1.UUCP> sob@neuro1.UUCP (Stan Barber) writes: >I believe the moderated newsgroups are not the same as unmoderated newgroups. >This means that the same rules for creating unmoderated newsgroups DO NOT >APPLY to moderated newsgroups. Well, in looking around I find the only thing even remotely resembling an official document describing newsgroup creation is the "How to Read the Network News" document distributed with news2.10.2. It makes no mention of differences in the creation of net. vs. mod. groups. There is no discussion at all in net.announce.newusers which, if memory serves, is the repository of net.history. Perhaps before we argue about the rules, we ought to have some rules to argue about, eh? >As I recall, the proceedure for a moderated group involves discussion in >net.news.group and the willingness of someone to be a moderator (and/or >a gateway). Perhaps someone could clarify these rules, but I am sure >that mod groups are not the issue here. Please do not include items that >do not belong. I'll agree about the procedure in creating moderated newsgroups, but notice that they are more strict than creating an unmoderated group. Not only must you have some sort of consensus that the group should be a group (and not a mailing list) but you must find an agreeable moderator as well. This is essentially a non-difference. The procedure (undocumented) wasn't followed anyway -- there was no discussion. Eric's assertion, however, was that there was *never* a group created without discussion. Patently an untrue assertion but then we're all getting a bit heated. -- Byron Howes System Manager -- NCECS ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch
avolio@decuac.UUCP (Frederick M. Avolio) (11/05/85)
In article <672@decuac.UUCP>, I wrote: > ... It is quite naive to think > that the people who really are in charge of paying the phone bills > read USENET. In fact, ... "employers"... would cut the funds almost > at once ... if they actually saw some of what they are paying for. I received this in the mail. Since the person was uneasy about posting it, I have removed the posters name, address, etc. - From ..................... Tue Nov 5 05:15:28 1985 - Received: by decuac.UUCP (4.12/0.98.UUCP-CS.beta.5-7-85) - id AA04055; Tue, 5 Nov 85 05:15:25 est - From: ....................... - Date: Mon, 4 Nov 85 11:56:47 pst - Message-Id: <851104..........> - To: decuac!avolio - Subject: Re: Fear and Loathing on the Clouds - Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group - In-Reply-To: <672@decuac.UUCP> - Organization: ... - Fred, It is diffecult to post this from here so am - forwarding it to you do do as you will. We recently had one - machine dropped from the net after a manager saw what was on it. - 4 other machines have groups turned off with more to come. - It isn't goint to happen, it is happening. -------------------------- Fred.
frith@trwrdc.UUCP (Lord Frith) (11/05/85)
In article <773@inset.UUCP> dave@inset.UUCP (Dave Lukes) writes: > > <<ENTER SARCASTIC MODE>> > Are you trying to tell me that every month (quarter, year, ...) > the backbone admins all pull out their wallets/chequebooks > and pay all the phone & net bills for their sites from their salaries?? > WOW!! What WONDERFUL people they must be, and with the amount of mail/news > going through the backbones, they must all be totally destitute by now. > <<EXIT SARCASTIC MODE>> > > Dave Lukes. Ah ... but it IS the backbone administrator who must go before his supervisor and justify the phone bills. When you run a computer facility and control the money ... you DO begin to think of it as your own paycheck because how you administer your budget directly affects the perception your supervisor has of your performance.
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (11/05/85)
> Please do not kill net.politics, net.religion, net.philosophy, > net.abortion, or any other "soapbox" groups. They serve a very > important purpose: keeping the net clear of junk so that others > can read what they want without having to wade through the > (insert favorite expletive). Without these groups, net.flame, > net.misc, and others will be flooded even worse than they are > now.... This is a real problem, but it has to be faced. The junk has to be stamped out, not just walled off into its own corner, because we can no longer afford to transmit it. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
frith@trwrdc.UUCP (Lord Frith) (11/06/85)
> Fine, if they won't pay any attention to us, why should we subsidize them? > Do you really want all the backbone sites to say "to hell with it" and stop > forwarding news? Bear in mind that there will be few volunteers lining up > for the privilege of paying exorbitant phone bills for your benefit. But there might be more willingness if there were many backbone sites. Cut down those long-distance calls and you cut the expense enourmously. >> There are those words again... "we" and "enforced." May I suggest that the >> rules of the net be enforced IN SOFTWARE according to a commonly held set >> of rules? Voting could be accomplished automatically. That would make >> a fun project. > > Actually, it would make a large and difficult project. That aside, I am > all in favor of this if there is a fee of, say, $20 per vote, the proceeds > to go towards the backbone's phone bills. If you aren't going to help with > our financial problems, don't expect us to live and die by your votes. Actually it would be legally infeasible for net users to pay the phone bills of large corporations since that would make EVERY site in the net a service organization etc etc... I don't expect you to live and die by voting. I don't expect voting to decrease the net traffic. I DO expect a voting system to be somewhat fairer and less prone to the caprice of an administrator than the current methodology. Nice topic for research too. >> No no no no no no! Slowing down the rate of growth is NOT the same as >> excersising control over newsgroup creation. You regulate flow by adapting >> the network topology to the flow. Build in more redundancy and coordinate >> calls between sites more effectivly. By controlling newsgroup creation you >> also control newsgroup content. > > Please explain what you mean by "adapting the network topology" and "build > in more redundancy" (the redundancy in the existing net improves reliability > at the cost of still higher phone bills!) Install more sites per backbone and perhaps two or three more "backbones." Kind of like trunk lines. Redundancy can be built in by having several sites feed each site if there are bottlenecks.
frith@trwrdc.UUCP (Lord Frith) (11/06/85)
>> It strikes me as yet another example of one person or group of persons >> attempting to assert their doctrine over the entire community.... > Why is that? Because it doesn't agree with what YOU want? It works > both ways, you know. I object to self-made "gaurdians of the truth" making statements like "we must impose centralized control over the community" when the only "we" that person speaks for is himself. You stated the need to eliminate newsgroups as sanctioned by "we." You certainly do not represent the entire Netnews community and by you own admission you don't represent the backbone administrators. So what can I conclude? >> And I suppose that the privelage to create newsgroups should be reserved >> to the system administrators so that those obnoxious bozos won't propagate >> their drivel? Who is this "we" that you speak of? Is this the royal "we." >> Do you speak for all site administrators or is this your own personal creedo? > > I suggest that before you flame me in public you check your facts. I am > not a site administrator. I am merely doing what everyone else is doing, > which is stating my opinion. Anyone who reads this newsgroup is entitled > to do so. By "we", I meant EVERYONE on the net. If you read it differently, > then you read what you wanted me to have said, not what I DID say. I wasn't suggesting that you WERE a site administrator. Note that I asked who you were representing. The fallacy in your opinion is that the "we" you speak of may not agree with you. Backbone administrators do (in general) but the net community as a whole might not. > And I think you are engaging in wishful thinking. Phone bills ARE mounting > to the point where groups ARE being cut by backbone sites. If we do not come > to some kind of agreement on how to limit net traffic, then the net really > WILL be run by the "backbone cabal" deciding what they can afford to pay for. > Phone bills CANNOT increase without bound. There HAS to be a limit > SOMEWHERE. The only question is, what is the limit and how shall it be > imposed. You can avoid the "imposition of limits" by simply distributing the load to other backbones. The so-called "backbone" might include quite a few more sites, spaced closer together to avoid those long-distance calls. This assumes that such sites can be found of course. Before claiming that limits must be imposed let's find an alternative to accomidate the net growth. If the growth cannot be accomidated then AT LEAST involve the net community so as to avoid this centralized "control" or elitest "cabal." > Perhaps you are right. But, if we don't come to an agreement on SOME kind > of rules, then traffic will continue to increase at the alarming rate it > currently is. And if whatever rules are agreed upon are not enforced, then > they are a joke. How do YOU propose to limit net traffic, By asking how I would limit the traiffic you have loaded the question. If net growth cannot be accomidated (you're creative people... find a way) then yes the traffic will have to be limited. If phone bills become too high for any one site to handle then that site should gracefully inform the community it serves that such is the case. > Depends on what you mean by "better", doesn't it? In our "free" society, > we indeed to have a "central body of administrators performing the will > of the community". It's called the Congress, the President and the Supreme > Court. The reason we have this is simple: it is impractical to give > EVERYONE input into EVERY decision that has to be made. I think that applies > to the net, too, and I believe that whether or not I end up being one of the > "central body" or not. The Netnews community more resembles an anarchy. Our system of government is more like a republic where the power to govern has supposedly been granted by the people. I think the power to make decisions CAN be distrbuted to the community with the right automated structure and that this would be an interesting experiment to try on the net. The net and our system of government are VERY different. I don't think this is really an adequate analogy. Exactly WHAT governing and administration is required to "run the net?" I may be wrong, but I see very little NECESSARY intervention by people. >> What you are willing or not willing to pay for effects sites down the pike >> that rely on you for news. ... Your site may pay the bills, but that >> doesn't mean you can ignore the needs of everyone else. > > We don't. We pass on a lot of articles that I'm fairly sure no one on > this site ever reads. But, there has to be a LIMIT. I do not WANT to see > the limit imposed by the backbone because of their own personal tastes. > That's why I'd much rather see a centralized set of rules that EVERYONE obeys. Me too. But I resent the notion that this set of rules must be imposed, administered and beaten into the heads of people from a central autonomous cable that the community has no control over. >> May I suggest that the rules of the net be enforced IN SOFTWARE >> according to a commonly held set of rules? Voting could be >> accomplished automatically. That would make a fun project. > > Not a bad idea. I am not opposed to such a suggestion, if it can be > implemented. Two questions would have to be answered; first, who is going > to write and test the new software, and second, what do we do about sites > that refuse to use the new software? How many sites refued to use Larry Wall's "rn" software? Is this a problem? I see no problem with the software being maintained through the usual methods. There would have to be built-in security methods that allow the methodology to remain public and yet secure. Kind of like the DES algorithm. We know how it works, we simply can't defeat it by knowing how it works. The voting software in Netnews would have to be like that. Ever study voting theory? It's very applicable to this net-scenario. >> No no no no no no! Slowing down the rate of growth is NOT the same as >> excersising control over newsgroup creation. You regulate flow by adapting >> the network topology to the flow. Build in more redundancy and coordinate >> calls between sites more effectivly. By controlling newsgroup creation you >> also control newsgroup content. > > I do not see that this is the case at all. Anyone can post whatever they > want. Nothing is in place to stop them. I do agree that some of the other > suggestions in this paragraph might be useful. Let the sites that want > net.bizarre arrange their own connections and PAY for it. No problem with > that. What is stoping us from posting just ANYTHING... are the net rules themselves. If I want to post "bizarre" material, just where am I going to do it? And if I create a new newsgroup called net.bizarre then it surely will be removed by Spaf on the grounds that it is useless and runs up phone bills. See what I mean? Of course to ask individual sites to pay for long-distance calls on such material is ridiculous (although quite fair). Thus we need several backbones to handle the diverse and increased load. > This has been attempted and it has failed. net.announce.newusers was > created for this purpose, and yet we STILL have people asking what SO means > in net.singles, or what have you, evidence that they did not READ the stuff > that was there to "educate" them. And we can't even get sites to upgrade > to COMPATIBLE versions of the news software, never mind something that > "we" have deemed "better". There will always be idiots...
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (11/08/85)
In article <6122@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes: > >This is a real problem, but it has to be faced. The junk has to be >stamped out, not just walled off into its own corner, because we can >no longer afford to transmit it. But I do not agree that it is *junk*. The material in the "soapbox" groups is admittedly not technical or work-related, but I find much of it to be a source of enjoyable social interactions and a way to challenge myself to *think* about various issues, not just take them for granted. These are useful functions. I would hate to see the net turned into a dry, purely technical forum, with no chance for challenging personal interactions. -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) UUCP: {ttidca|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|quad1|nrcvax|bellcore|logico}!psivax!friesen ARPA: ttidca!psivax!friesen@rand-unix.arpa
gds@mit-eddie.UUCP (Greg Skinner) (11/09/85)
> From: bch@ecsvax.UUCP (Byron C. Howes) > Where does it say in the rules for usenet conduct that the procedure > for creating mod.* groups is different than the procedure for creating > net.* groups? Actually, nowhere in the USENET documentation, nor in any current versions of net.announce.newusers, are there stated rules for creation or deletion of a newsgroup. The only references to new/rmgrouping are found in the installation guide where they explain how to do it. I think the next version of net.announce.newusers should contain the rules for creating/deleting groups. What do you think, Gene? -- It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under. Greg Skinner (gregbo) {decvax!genrad, allegra, ihnp4}!mit-eddie!gds gds@mit-eddie.mit.edu
herbie@polaris.UUCP (Herb Chong) (11/09/85)
In article <1095@trwrdc.UUCP> frith@trwatf.UUCP (Lord Frith) writes: >I don't expect you to live and die by voting. I don't expect voting to >decrease the net traffic. I DO expect a voting system to be somewhat >fairer and less prone to the caprice of an administrator than the current >methodology. Nice topic for research too. simple voting never has been, and never will be fair. it can be proven that by using game theory. consensus is much fairer, but much harder to do. 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.
herbie@polaris.UUCP (Herb Chong) (11/09/85)
In article <1096@trwrdc.UUCP> frith@trwatf.UUCP (Lord Frith) writes: [Note: in the following, "you" refers to the USENET population as a whole, and not to Lord Frith personally.] >The Netnews community more resembles an anarchy. Our system of government >is more like a republic where the power to govern has supposedly been granted >by the people. I think the power to make decisions CAN be distrbuted to >the community with the right automated structure and that this would be >an interesting experiment to try on the net. this pre-supposes that the people have a sufficient understanding of the total situation to make a decision that is in the best interests of the net. i used to be at the University of Waterloo where watmath is a USENET backbone site. it talks to utzoo, which is another backbone site an hour's drive away. we didn't see the situtation that Henry Spencer sees at utzoo, and we weren't in a position to make a decision that directly affects him without consultation. now imagine what it would be like for people like Peter Di Silva in Australia. how is he going to make a decision about something happening on the watmath-ihnp4 link? by the time you take things like this into account, you have so many ad hoc rules that the bureacracy ties everything down. and does Peter really care about that link? probably not. he mainly cares about his news feed. organizationally, you have to make the thing manageable, and a hierarchy is the easiest way, though not the only one, nor neccesarily the best, but it works, and has been shown to work in many circumstances. >The net and our system of government are VERY different. I don't think this >is really an adequate analogy. Exactly WHAT governing and administration is >required to "run the net?" I may be wrong, but I see very little NECESSARY >intervention by people. what needs managing? the newsgroups do. imagine if everyone who adminstered news at a site could create new groups at whim. you thnk it is difficult to organize how you read your news now, you should try it when there are over 1000 newsgroups. i am a memeber of a conferencing/news system where there are about 1500 groups. it is not a trivial matter to follow, especially when anyone can create a newsgroup, not just an administrator, and there are over 100,000 people that are members of the system. what about just the organizational aspects of keeping track of who exists for mail and file transfer purposes? once again, someone or some group of people need to. >Me too. But I resent the notion that this set of rules must be imposed, >administered and beaten into the heads of people from a central autonomous >cable that the community has no control over. the community has a lot of control over it. don't connect to the sites whose policies that you don't agree with. but then be ready to accept all the consequences. yes, you will have freedom to do what you want, but is the price worth it? you will have to pay the long distance phone calls or have LONG delays in getting news and/or mail. if you think this is an acceptible price to pay, then go ahead. no-one is stopping you. 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.
hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) (11/11/85)
A number of people have said things like: > The so-called "backbone" might include quite a few more > sites, spaced closer together to avoid those long-distance calls. However, note that crossing the country in 10 hops is not only not less than doing it in 1, it is much more expensive. Long distance calls are surprising distance insensitive (especially at night rates) - and in many cases an in-state call will cost more than a longer out-of-state call. (This gets very complicated fast!) While I am in favor of optimizing the net (and apple pie, etc.) I do not think that adding "backbone" sites will help much, if at all. --henry schaffer n c state univ
sob@neuro1.UUCP (Stan Barber) (11/13/85)
With respect the the creation of the mod.computers.*, mod.politics.*, etc,
this was discussed in net.news.group as I recall. There was not much
discussion (relative to the current volume on the issues of net.source.mac
and net.internat/net.bizarre), but there WAS discussion.
As to Erik's assertion that there has never been a group created without
discussion, he may not have been totally correct. However, Byron points
this out by citing a counter-example of net.announce which like net.news.*
is necessary for the operation of the network (although some have already
suggested that net.news.group may be a bit too large and hot lately).
Now, if Byron would like to cite an example of a group which has a prefix
of net. and is not one of the "administrative" groups (net.announce.*,
net.general, net.misc, net.news.* or net.followup), then I think he would
have a successful counter-example.
I must agree that there is not current documentation on the correct
proceedure to create a moderated newsgroup. I believe that the reason
for this was due to the original experimental nature of mod groups.
This lack of documentation will hopefully be corrected here on the net
and in the documentation to be distributed with netnews 2.10.3.
--
Stan uucp:{ihnp4!shell,rice}!neuro1!sob Opinions expressed
Olan ARPA:sob@rice.arpa here are ONLY mine &
Barber CIS:71565,623 BBS:(713)660-9262 noone else's.henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (11/17/85)
> But I do not agree that it is *junk*. The material in the > "soapbox" groups is admittedly not technical or work-related, > but... [isn't junk] The original reference was to net.flame, which is Junk! JUNK! *JUNK*!!! Also, a really significant fraction of the traffic in *any* newsgroup right now -- except for the moderated ones -- really is junk. This is not just a matter of running up phone bills, bad though that is. The proliferation of junk in a newsgroup hurts everyone who reads it, by lowering the signal/noise ratio and making people spend more time getting the same amount of useful information. Some sort of trash filtering is becoming really vital. Moderation, problematic though it is, is the only answer I can see. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (11/21/85)
> that directly affects him without consultation. now imagine what it > would be like for people like Peter Di Silva in Australia. how is he > going to make a decision about something happening on the watmath-ihnp4 > link? by the time you take things like this into account, you have so > many ad hoc rules that the bureacracy ties everything down. Good point. One minor quibble, though... I'm in Houston, Texas. I haven't lived in Australia for 6 years. -- Name: Peter da Silva Graphic: `-_-' UUCP: ...!shell!{graffiti,baylor}!peter IAEF: ...!kitty!baylor!peter