ab3@pucc-h (Darth Wombat) (12/21/83)
Having observed the machinations of netnews for a while,
I'd like to make some observations and offer a couple (hopefully)
constructive suggestions:
1. Theorem: If a group exists, *someone* will post to it, even if
the message is of the form "What is this newsgroup for?". Example: net.oa.
2. A great many of the messages in various newsgroups are duplicates.
I'm not referring to machine/news/uucp-error-generated duplicates, but
multiple responses to single questions...such as "What is BSS?".
3. A great many messages are so short and so unreferenced as to be
meaningless. Example: (The entire body of a message) "What about New York?".
4. Some people are upset about the content of messages; for example,
profanity in net.jokes. Some people (especially Europe) are quite rightly
concerned about the vast amount of traffic transferred at non-trivial expense.
Some people are unsuscribing to newsgroups they'd rather keep because of
nuisance traffic. Some people are concerned about the disk space/cpu time
needed to receive, file, and send all this stuff.
Ok, now for the suggestions:
A. Newsgroups should expire in the same way as articles, with the
exception that certain groups should *never* expire; such as net.announce,
net.bugs.*, and other "serious" work-related newsgroups; the definition of
a work-related-serious-non-bogus-newsgroup is one that you can justify to
someone sitting upstairs who wears a three-piece suit and worries about
money and does not know what MOTOS means.
B. Some newsgroups should be moderated; especially those which are
(1) related to work (see A above) and (2) transmitted to Europe. This cuts
down on traffic and everyone's reading time at the expense of (1) the
moderator's time and (2) slower dissemination of information. Certainly
this is a judgement call, but I think that if a group (say unix-wizards) is
worth so many folks' time to contribute to and read, that it is certainly
worth someone's time to moderate it. Of course, volunteer moderators with
a judicious editorial sense must be found, but I really would not expect this
to be a problem. Some newsgroups should be unmoderated; for example,
net.flame.
C. (Now for the really wild ideas.) The next release of news should
contain a provision to create a file called, say, .newsperm (owned by "news")
in a user's home directory. This file would allow the user to submit news,
and would be created upon successful completion of /usr/bin/newsquiz, which
would query the user as to his/her knowledge of Usenet/Arpanet submittal
procedures, etiquette, and so on. An alternate implementation would use
/usr/lib/news/who-can-submit as a central database; this would also make it
easy for local site administrators to cut off anyone who was persistently
obnoxious.
Comments?
Rich Kulawiec
Purdue University Computing Center Unix Staff
--
"Go ahead...make my day."
Darth Wombat
{ allegra, decvax, ihnp4, harpo, seismo, teklabs, ucbvax } !pur-ee!rskemjej@uokvax.UUCP (03/18/84)
#R:uok:5700001:uokvax:9300018:000:729 uokvax!emjej Mar 16 09:04:00 1984 Re a net.poll: if you could avoid ballot box stuffing, then it might be nice to have some machine automatically track the ballots and create/delete the groups, to avoid concurrency problems. But then, I wonder whether it isn't a matter of a design error. Rather than having a setup in which large amounts of time are spent discussing/ranting about the existence (proposed or lamented) of a news group, shouldn't there be a more flexible system, in which people post notes (possibly with keywords) with specified (or implicit, based on keywords) distribution--if a topic comes and goes, so be it. What is it about existing software that makes it such a Terribly Important Question whether a news group exists? James Jones
peter@baylor.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (08/22/85)
Might I suggest that everyone proposing a new group suggest a group that
can be deleted to make way for the new one. If there are more people who
want the new group than the old one, and it is not a seasonal group in the
off-season, then the new group could be created.
Might I suggest that net.projects replace net.bizarre?
--
Peter (Made in Australia) da Silva
UUCP: ...!shell!neuro1!{hyd-ptd,baylor,datafac}!peter
MCI: PDASILVA; CIS: 70216,1076mazina@pur-ee.UUCP (Der Kaiser) (09/05/85)
{Hmm, time to shoot my mouth off...}
I think that by now it is apparent that the net will collapse under
its own weight eventually. It is a simple case of unlimited growth on limited
resources. It has simple causes:
1) More newsgroups. Not that these newsgroups are bad,
or not good, or whatever. Just too many.
2) More trash. More repetitive, non-germane postings.
There is no easy solution to #1. Judging the relative worth of newsgroups in
a quagmire of bias waiting to spring on the unwary. However, #2 can be solved.
My proposal:
A monitor for each group.
Now, don't close your minds just yet. I will admit, up front, that I am
avdocating censorship, a concept I normally dislike. However, if it is a
choice between that or no USENET... I hope you get the picture.
Now, as to who. I don't know much about the people who really keep the
net going. I do know about a few people: Chuqui (sorry I don't know your
real name), Gene Spafford, & Lauren Weinstein. I have read, I think, most
of the articles these people have posted in net.news, net.news.group, etc,
etc. After reading them, I would trust them to monitor news. They seem to
be unbiased and truly interested in the net as a whole. They seem to do
most of the dirty work, and take most of the flak. Why not give them authority
commensurate with their responsibility? Obviously they cannot police the net
themselves, (nor would they probably want to try!), but I would trust any
monitor they appointed.
As to how. I propose that there should be a monitor appointed by the above
named people, to do the following:
1) Read ALL the articles posted. (In net.flame, a BIG job)
2) Mail warnings to inappropriate posters.
3) If a poster repeatedly ignores warnings (3 or more?),
mail a note to their system site administrator, requesting
action.
(By inappropriate postings, I mean: obscene, abusive, wrong group, or
the articles that are 99% quotes with a 1 line statement following)
Obviously, most people will see sense after a warning or two. There will
hopefully be very few notes to SA's.
If a poster feels that a warning is undeserved, he can mail a note to
one of the three mentioned above. As long as everyone is reasonable,
it should work. A little reminder is all most people really need, just
a reminder that there is a bit of order in the anarchy.
Problems with this proposal are legion.
1) Chuqi, Loren, or Gene may not like it (I would appreciate
input from these people, of course!)
2) Getting enough people to monitor all the newsgroups.
Perhaps getting monitors for the high-volume news
groups like net.{flame, politics, singles, women, politics,
etc}
3) Disaffection among the rest of you. I realize that
this can look like a Machiavellian plot to take over the
net. It isn't. I really enjoy the net. I want to see it
continue. I don't believe it will exist much longer in
anything resembling its present form.
Please consider this with an open mind, and let me know what you think.
Thomas Ruschak
pur-ee!mazina
"By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes... "
--- W. Shakespearercj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson) (09/06/85)
(I resisted the 'F' key on rn; aren't you proud of me!!) I see only one major problem with your idea of a monitor for each newsgroup: It is easy to weed out multiple redundant postings of answers to questions in, say, net.unix-wizards or net.puzzle. It is NOT easy to weed out what is 'good' and what is total trash from the rest of the groups. Unfortunately (someone correct me if I am wrong) the massive loads tend to come in newsgroups like politics, flame, jokes, bizarre, etc. that are not easy to moderate (spelled w-e-e-d--o-u-t). You might get some volume reduction just from the fact that people know they are going through a moderator -- perhaps more trimming of quoted material and less ranting and raving; but I think that this would be too small of a stopgap measure to be worth the trouble it would cause. Sorry to be so negative; I'm at a loss, too. -- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj ...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj
david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover) (09/06/85)
In article <3261@pur-ee.UUCP> mazina@pur-ee.UUCP (Der Kaiser) writes: ... > A monitor for each group. ... [With these duties: ] > 1) Read ALL the articles posted. (In net.flame, a BIG job) > 2) Mail warnings to inappropriate posters. > 3) If a poster repeatedly ignores warnings (3 or more?), > mail a note to their system site administrator, requesting > action. I'm glad somebody else has had this idea. I had it about a month ago and thought I'd let it percolate .... There's only one duty I'd like to add: 4) monthly/biweekly/weekly posting of "proper etiquette" for that newsgroup. (Time period would be appropriate to the group and size of the posting). One problem I see is that people aren't reading the net.announce.newusers stuff. Maybe if they did they'd have a greater feel for the impact of their actions. Also, mispostings could be explained by bad organization of the newsgroup list (not Gene's fault!) so people find it hard to read. If there were small readable postings in each newsgroup the information (on proper postings) might be easier to absorb. I just couldn't think of any real power such a person could posess. At any rate, here's a possible posting I came up with for net.sources. (This is a slightly changed net.sources that understands what is happening with net.sources with it moving towards mod.sources). Proposed net.sources rules file ------------------------------- [Created 10-Aug-85, David Herron, ukma!david. This file describes the proper use for net.sources. It's posted once a month by some net ghod who hasn't been chosen yet.] Purpose: Net.sources is for postings related to program sources which have been posted to the network. 1. For postings of sources, send them to the mod.sources moderator, John Nelson (john@genrad.UUCP). 2. Be warned that posting sources here may get you flamed. Also, you and you alone will be responsible for handling "I missed x, please repost" requests. If you post through mod.sources then this can be taken care of for you. 3. If you still feel you must post sources here then there are a couple of rules to follow: a. Make sure they're short and not of cosmic significance. Large cosmically significant postings belong in mod.sources. b. Don't repost because one person on the far side of the net missed your posting. Mail it to him (or her) instead. You'll save us all a lot of phone bills, and not clutter up the newsgroup as well. ------------------------------------- Whew! That came to 23 lines. What I have in mind here can be titled "coordinator" if you like titles. Maybe s/he can be given some software powers. But, at least, the coordinator should be the policeman on the block, so to speak. Abusers and the like in that newsgroup should be brought to his attention. etc. It's an idea anyway ... (It's time to get down off my soapbox now) -- --- David Herron --- ARPA-> ukma!david@ANL-MCS.ARPA --- UUCP-> {ucbvax,unmvax,boulder,oddjob}!anlams!ukma!david --- {ihnp4,decvax,ucbvax}!cbosgd!ukma!david Hackin's in me blood. My mother was known as Miss Hacker before she married!
fair@ucbvax.ARPA (Erik E. Fair) (09/07/85)
Ideally, ALL users of the USENET are network monitors. In the abscence of positive educational efforts on the part of netnews administrators across the network (Are You Listening, AT&T EXPTOOLS administrators?), the individual users all over the world should be exerting peer-pressure by network mail to modify undesireable behaviour on the part of other users of the network. Is it really so hard to read the network etiquette articles, and work within those guidelines? And perhaps occasionally educate someone else about those guidelines? In sum, it is our network, and we are all collectively responsible for the content thereof. Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU
bcx@eeg.UUCP ( Bryan Costales) (09/08/85)
> My proposal: > A monitor for each group. > ... > Thomas Ruschak Mr. Ruschak proposes, on the one hand, to limit the number of groups, while on the other suggesting that all groups become moderated. He then goes on to bemoan the fact the such groups as net.politics (etc.) are surely too large for a single person to moderate. Surely these two views work against each other. If each and every group is to be moderated, then we must have more, rather than fewer, groups. Instead of one lone individual vanishing under an avalanche of say net.abortion, I propose several individuals keeping abreast of say net.abortion.(subdivisions here). Adding groups only requires the expenditure of a few inodes. Subdivisions, in and of themselves, would not significantly impact disk space, or communication system loads. Coupled with enforced moderation, more groups could be accommodated at the same or lower loads. Now don't get me wrong. I don't favor moderation. I suspect, however, that it may become a necessary evil. -- ---- Bryan Costales, EEG Systems Laboratory 1855 Folsom St, San Francisco, Ca 94103 (415) 621-8343 {ihnp4,dual,qantel}!ptsfa!eeg!bcx
stuart@sesame.UUCP (Stuart Freedman) (09/08/85)
> My proposal: > > A monitor for each group. > > Now, don't close your minds just yet. I will admit, up front, that I am > avdocating censorship, a concept I normally dislike. However, if it is a > choice between that or no USENET... I hope you get the picture. I get the picture and agree that some form of censorship is necessary. How about if the NEWS ADMINISTRATOR at every site (rather than just one appointed monitor): > 1) Read ALL the articles posted. (In net.flame, a BIG job) > 2) Mail warnings to inappropriate posters. > 3) If a poster repeatedly ignores warnings (3 or more?), > mail a note to their system site administrator, requesting > action. actually did all of the above (taking direct action)? But he/she would only have to take responsibility for the postings from his/her site. This might leave a better feeling in the hearts of the anti-censorship people. > (By inappropriate postings, I mean: obscene, abusive, wrong group, or > the articles that are 99% quotes with a 1 line statement following) > Obviously, most people will see sense after a warning or two. There will > hopefully be very few notes to SA's. > > > Thomas Ruschak > pur-ee!mazina It would be much nicer if the administrators got more involved in the human factors, i.e., policing and informing users, or perhaps (if they have their hands full) they could appoint someone else who is up to the task. My point is that I believe that a lot of net traffic results from ignorance (because the poster has not been properly educated about using the net) and/or lack of proper policing by news administrators. When I was the news adm. for a public access system, I felt an obligation to read every posting that went out from our site (it would be pretty trivial to set this up to be done auto- matically, BTW); we also had a somewhat fascist (but, I believe, reasonable) policy of restricting posting rights until a new user was familiar enough with Usenet (and had it banged in his/her head that most questions could probably be answered LOCALLY, so why clutter up the net?!). I think that posting should not be a right, but a privilege that can be taken away by a news adm. who is paying attention. I note here that I have not addressed the case of the person who IS the administrator (e.g., a PC), but this is trivial: It is up to the person who allowed him to connect to his/her site to monitor the connecting site's input to the net. It is also up to the conscientious news reader to inform the appropriate people if he/she believes that a certain user is abusing his/her privilege. Perhaps there should be a 'News Administrator' line in the uucp maps... My apologies for rambling on so long, but it is late (I'm semi-conscious, but very concerned for the future of this amorphous blob). -- Stuart Freedman {genrad|ihnp4|ima}!wjh12!talcott!sesame!stuart Data General Corp. (Mail Stop E-219) {cbosgd|harvard}!talcott!sesame!stuart Westboro, MA 01580 +1(617)870-9659 stuart%sesame.uucp@harvard.arpa
mjc@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA (Monica Cellio) (09/09/85)
From: bcx@eeg ( Bryan Costales) >> My proposal: >> A monitor for each group. >> >Mr. Ruschak proposes [...] that all groups become moderated. The suggestion was for a monitor, not a moderator. A monitor would look at messages that have been posted and note abusers of the net. This is a task that could be divided among several people for large groups, I suspect (split up by date, site, topic, whatever... on any given (large) net there are usually only a few topics under discussion, so spliting it up by topic with one person taking "all new topics" (and parcelling these out to other people when they become major topics) should work). A moderator, on the other hand, looks at all incoming messages and decides whether to post them, and this would be harder to split up among many people. -Dragon -- UUCP: ...ucbvax!dual!lll-crg!dragon ARPA: monica.cellio@cmu-cs-cad or dragon@lll-crg
mazina@pur-ee.UUCP (Der Kaiser) (09/12/85)
In article <116@eeg.UUCP> bcx@eeg.UUCP ( Bryan Costales) writes: >> My proposal: >> A monitor for each group. >> > ... >> Thomas Ruschak > >Mr. Ruschak proposes, on the one hand, to limit the number of groups, >while on the other suggesting that all groups become moderated. He then >goes on to bemoan the fact the such groups as net.politics (etc.) are >surely too large for a single person to moderate. First, a monitor is NOT the same as a moderator. A moderator recieves and ok's all postings in a group. A monitor reads all postings in a group and sends mail to the authors of those he feels are inappropriate... Second, I feel that net.{politics, flame, etc} ARE too large to be useful. They are NOT too large to monitor. Thomas Ruschak pur-ee!mazina "By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes... " --- W. Shakespeare
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (09/13/85)
In article <2143@ukma.UUCP> david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover) writes: >In article <3261@pur-ee.UUCP> mazina@pur-ee.UUCP (Der Kaiser) writes: >... >> A monitor for each group. >... >[With these duties: ] >> 1) Read ALL the articles posted. (In net.flame, a BIG job) >> 2) Mail warnings to inappropriate posters. >> 3) If a poster repeatedly ignores warnings (3 or more?), >> mail a note to their system site administrator, requesting >> action. > >... There's only one duty I'd like to add: > > 4) monthly/biweekly/weekly posting of "proper etiquette" > for that newsgroup. (Time period would be appropriate > to the group and size of the posting). > Actually, this may well be a good idea, as long as it is understood that we are talking about a monitor/policeman *not* a moderator who has to pass on all postings. In fact I might even be willing to become the/a monitor for some group(such as net.origins since I already read almost everything in it). Also, it should be remembered that there might well be more than on monitor for "large" groups, to sort of split up the load. -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) UUCP: {ttidca|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|quad1|nrcvax|bellcore|logico}!psivax!friesen ARPA: ttidca!psivax!friesen@rand-unix.arpa
mason@utcsri.UUCP (Dave Mason) (09/21/85)
In article <2143@ukma.UUCP> david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover) writes: >In article <3261@pur-ee.UUCP> mazina@pur-ee.UUCP (Der Kaiser) writes: >... >> A monitor for each group. >... >[With these duties: ] >> 1) Read ALL the articles posted. (In net.flame, a BIG job) >> 2) Mail warnings to inappropriate posters. >> 3) If a poster repeatedly ignores warnings (3 or more?), >> mail a note to their system site administrator, requesting >> action. I think this is already done, at least informally, and I'm not sure we really need/want official monitors. > >.... There's only one duty I'd like >to add: > 4) monthly/biweekly/weekly posting of "proper etiquette" > for that newsgroup. I think Laura's idea of permanent articles is a better approach. > >At any rate, here's a possible posting I came up with for net.sources. >(This is a slightly changed net.sources that understands what is happening >with net.sources with it moving towards mod.sources). > >Purpose: Net.sources is for postings related to program sources > which have been posted to the network. > >1. For postings of sources, send them to the mod.sources > moderator, John Nelson (john@genrad.UUCP). >2. Be warned that posting sources here may get you flamed. Also, you This is not the right approach, I don't think. mod.sources serves a useful purpose, but so does net.sources. Some things are not really of sufficient importance for the moderator to post them. There are those of us who still like the free-for-all atmosphere of this net, while trying to keep our heads above the flood. I agree that net.sources is becoming next to useless, but I suggest other solutions. I suggest that the postnews software be changed to know a little about new groups, and: 1) if there is a newsgroup.d, the Followup-to field for a message to newsgroup should be filled in with newsgroup.d. This is already what is supposed to happen in net.jokes & net.jokes.d; I think it could well apply to net.sources. 2) if net.sources is included in a distribution list, other groups should be discouraged or disallowed. I was recently guilty of including net.sources in a distribution list, which I did because I wasn't sure of the readership in net.wanted.sources (and everybody else was posting junk to net.sources...why not me :-). A monitor of that group mailed me a (fairly) polite note asking me not to do that, and having thought about it, I wouldn't do it again. I think a message from postnews would have had the same effect. The other approach is to get rid of newsgroups completely, and use keywords (or something), as is being discussed in net.news.notes. -- Usenet: {dalcs dciem garfield musocs qucis sask titan trigraph ubc-vision utzoo watmath allegra cornell decvax decwrl ihnp4 uw-beaver} !utcsri!mason Dave Mason, U. Toronto CSRI CSNET: mason@Toronto ARPA: mason%Toronto@CSNet-Relay