avolio@decuac.UUCP (Frederick M. Avolio) (09/10/85)
In article <626@bu-cs.UUCP>, root@bu-cs.UUCP (Barry Shein) writes: > > First, I think Lauren was a little gloomy the day he announced the death > of the USENET, it's certainly reached an annoying level in many ways, > but, as the old expression goes, 'the reports of my death have been > greatly exagerrated'. I agree with a solution (of sorts) which has been suggested: that heavily loaded sites turn off some news groups. And new sites never turn them on. Let me briefly explain how we started dealing with news on decuac a year ago. When we "joined" USENET, our disk space was very limited. Because of that we started by only receiving "technical" groups, and then only ones for which there was an interest. We then added some non- technical groups as people requested them. Even now, after getting loads more disk space, we operate the same way. In addition, we expire some groups much sooner than others (3 days for some). While we made it clear to our local "backbone" site (seismo) that we were very willing to pass on news, a number of folks have lost interest when then find out that we do not receive *everything*. (My goodness!! No net.rec.nude?!?!? Where do people get the time to read all this stuff?) I think if sites do turn off links and groups (by turn off groups, I mean no one passes them said groups) for their own well-being, we will see the net get healthier again.
friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) (09/13/85)
In article <610@decuac.UUCP> avolio@decuac.UUCP (Frederick M. Avolio) writes: > >I think if sites do turn off links and groups (by turn off groups, I >mean no one passes them said groups) for their own well-being, we will >see the net get healthier again. Well, I, for one, feel that telling another site what groups it can and cannot recieve is completely out of line. If the other site has some alternative way of getting the groups you will not pass on - all right, but I sincerely hope major feed sites will not start cutting off groups like this! Just passing a group through to your feed sites uses little disk space, since the groups can be deleted immediately after delivery! I would certainly hate to come some morning and find my favorite groups cut off without a word! -- Sarima (Stanley Friesen) UUCP: {ttidca|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|quad1|nrcvax|bellcore|logico}!psivax!friesen ARPA: ttidca!psivax!friesen@rand-unix.arpa
matt@oddjob.UUCP (Matt Crawford) (09/18/85)
In article <719@psivax.UUCP> friesen@psivax.UUCP (Stanley Friesen) writes: > Well, I, for one, feel that telling another site what groups >it can and cannot recieve is completely out of line. But what about the opposite? I would love to hold the only news connection to site "prometheus" -- so I could unplug its postings to net.physics! No flames, please, I know it is a reprehensible attitude, but I can't think what can be done about that particular problem. _____________________________________________________ Matt University crawford@anl-mcs.arpa Crawford of Chicago ihnp4!oddjob!matt