drews@utrc-2at.UUCP (Drew Sullivan) (09/13/85)
When I worked for Honeywell I had access to their Multics system. On it was a package called "forum" that served the same purpose as news does on the usenet. One of the nicer feature of forum was that it kept all of the discussions on all topic forever. This ment that a new user could read all of the articles before he added his two cents worth. Since most mundane issues were covered very early, they tended not to be repeated every few months. The problem I see with usenet NEWS is not that you need to expire article faster, but what you need is expire them slower! The real question is do we want the usenet as a library of information or would we rather have it as a $.75 mag that you pick up and throw away after first reading. We are now reaching a turning point in the network, we have to start to address the human issues of high computer/human connectivity as well as the technical ones. I have no solutions as of yet but if you think that the net is overloaded now, what do you think it will be like when you can buy a micro for $1000, with 10Mb floppies runing GEM with 2Mb of memory and UUCP/mail/news... comes out as public domain software that you down-loaded from your favourite RBBS? -- Drew.