lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (08/24/85)
It occurs to me that there's a fundamental flaw in the way we handle newsgroup creation/deletion. The person who wants the group says, "I want this group. Send your votes to me." Then he or she sometime later (almost inevitably) says, "well, I got 20 yes votes (or 50, or whatever) for the group, so let's create it now." Outside of the issue of whether or not 20 or 50 or even 200 votes justifies a newsgroup going all over the world to many 10's of 1000's of people, there's another issue. How do we know that the person proposing the group is going to be completely honest about the responses they receive? I hate to make the suggestion that there might be some people on the network who would lie about such things--but perhaps they just conveniently ignore some of the no votes. After all, they want that group, and if there are people who vote against the idea it can make the original idea look bad, and can reflect badly on a person's self-esteem. After all, we're all only human. We tend to operate on the assumption that everyone is honest. Unfortunately, we're dealing with lots of people and lots of egos here, and some people may feel that since they KNOW a group is needed they'll do everyone a favor by only reporting the votes they want to report. And there's no way for anyone to prove that they might have distorted the truth (for whatever motives) in the process. The procedure of sending arguments against a group to the person proposing the group seems equally flawed. Such comments should go to the public forum, not to the person with a vested interest in the group's creation. While it won't solve all of the problems inherent in the situation, and there are certainly a variety of ways for fraud to occur, there's one thing we can do that will remove one variable from the equation right off the bat. All newsgroup voting should be conducted via a disinterested third party. The person who proposes a group should not be the one to count the votes and receive the arguments. A third party should be the one with this "honor," ideally someone who couldn't care less about the proposed group in question. With a small network and few groups (and low traffic) newsgroup creation wasn't such a big deal. But we now have a big network, lots of traffic, and lots of people--a new newsgroup can immediately impact disk space, costs, and various other factors for many, many people around the world. It seem only prudent to try assure some degree of impartiality in the process that contributes to the management of these groups. Just because we don't let the politicians count their own votes doesn't mean we think they are necessarily dishonest or would lie--but we still have separate organizations that handle the counting. --Lauren--
rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson) (08/25/85)
In article <755@vortex.UUCP> lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes: >It occurs to me that there's a fundamental flaw in the way we handle >newsgroup creation/deletion. The person who wants the group says, >"I want this group. Send your votes to me." Then he or she sometime >later (almost inevitably) says, "well, I got 20 yes votes (or 50, or >whatever) for the group, so let's create it now." > >Outside of the issue of whether or not 20 or 50 or even 200 votes >justifies a newsgroup going all over the world to many 10's of 1000's >of people, there's another issue. How do we know that the person >proposing the group is going to be completely honest about the >responses they receive? I hate to make the suggestion that there might I'd hate to do that, too; and I think that most people would be quite honest. Also, you'll find that the person usually does receive a vast majority of positive responses -- if I agree that a group should be created I send mail to the original suggestor/poster; if I disagree then I post to net.news.group. I believe most people do the same, so the negatives DO get put on the public forum. >With a small network and few groups (and low traffic) newsgroup >creation wasn't such a big deal. But we now have a big network, >lots of traffic, and lots of people--a new newsgroup can immediately >impact disk space, costs, and various other factors for many, many >people around the world. It seem only prudent to try assure some A new newsgroup can only immediately impact all those things if there are people posting to it. So what if a new group gets created due to dishonesty on the part of the vote-taker? If there is really not sufficient interest in the group, it doesn't impact disk space, costs, or anything else and will be history in 6 months when the next cleanup takes place. I personally see net.news.group not as a forum where we discuss whether or not a group deserves to be created, but rather as a forum where we: a) find out if anyone else is interested enough in the subject that we are rabid about to sustain a newsgroup for it, and b) make sure that we don't allow stupid things like creation of net.unix.bugs when we already have net.bugs.* Does it really matter what the actual votes were on net.bizarre? It is PAINFULLY obvious now that the interest IS present. -- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj ...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (08/27/85)
As the net continues to grow and extend more into the world at large, I think we're being exceedingly naive if we believe that everyone is going to as honest or concerned about the "welfare of the net" as "we've" been in the past. There are lots of ways the network can be abused, both by accident and on purpose. I don't think we've BEGUN to see the problems that are down the line. However, some people think the network can just grow and grow and grow, with ever more sites and ever more traffic, and still stay the little "closeknit" family that we've tried to make it up to now, without significant organizational changes. I want to see Usenet survive, but some people can't seem to understand that our organizational techniques are not "scaling up" very well at this point and may need some changing! --Lauren--
sunil@ut-ngp.UTEXAS (Sunil Trivedi) (08/28/85)
From: lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) Message-ID:<755@vortex.UUCP> >... The person who wants the group says, >"I want this group. Send your votes to me." Then he or she sometime >later (almost inevitably) says, "well, I got 20 yes votes (or 50, or >whatever) for the group, so let's create it now." >... there's another issue. How do we know that the person >proposing the group is going to be completely honest about the >responses they receive? Well Lauren, I'll send the list of "supporters" of net.nlang.spanish to anyone who requests it or I'll post it to the net. If you (or anyone else) don't believe me, you can send e-mail to them and ask them about it for your own piece-of-mind. I'd hope that you do not doubt the maturity of most of the Usenetters! Keep in mind since most of the Usenetters are readers and not posters, many of these people prefer to to send e-mail than posting to net.news.group. It's much easier to rally people to go against something than to rally for something. People who are against will normally post their disappointments to the net [I think we know many of these :-) ] >With a small network and few groups (and low traffic) newsgroup >creation wasn't such a big deal. But we now have a big network, >lots of traffic, and lots of people--a new newsgroup can immediately >impact disk space, costs, and various other factors for many, many >people around the world. A new newsgroup can only survive (the cleanups) if traffic (appeal) is seen. If there is no appeal, the newsgroup will die at the next round of Spaf's Clean Sweep. :-) If you are worried about disk space, etc, then you don't need to take on a full newsfeed. I'm sure that net.flame is not a high priority on many sites so they don't carry it. Sunil Trivedi P.O. Box 8057, Austin, TX 78713-8057 sunil@ut-ngp.ARPA ...!arpasite!sunil@ut-ngp.ARPA where arpasite is an ARPANET site ...!{ihnp4,allegra,gatech,nbires,shell} \ !ut-ngp!sunil / ...!{ut-sally,utastro,utep-vaxa,cyb-eng}
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (08/30/85)
It isn't that easy for many sites to take partial feeds. Since the downstream sites are affected by the choices the upstream feeds make, any attempt to "cut back" on newsgroups by many sites frequently results in cries and screams from downstream. "Don't take away the important groups like net.bizarre and net.flame," they yell! It is NOT true that it's harder to rally support FOR a group than against it. For ANY TOPIC you care to name, you could get a bunch of people together to support it. A few people will bother to speak out against it. The vast majority couldn't care less and won't bother to say anything. This latter group doesn't intend to read it, but they don't care about the disk space and phones and such, so they don't care if it gets sent around. Let's say you had some oddball topic that 20 people wanted to discuss. They are prolific--they post lots of messages. The group will LOOK "useful"--it will certainly have plenty in it... but does it serve the net at large? Couldn't a mailing list have done a better job? The amount of waste involved in the net is almost unimagineable. Mailing lists could serve many interested people far better in many cases than newsgroups being sent everywhere. When the large sites that support much of the net start pulling the plugs (and sooner or later they will) it's gonna be all too clear what our "loose" attitude toward newsgroup creation has netted us (no pun intended). --Lauren--
rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson) (08/30/85)
As usual, Lauren continues to beat on those of us who are a little slow until we see the light. I have done so, I came out against his "Vote Fraud" but must heartily agree with the following: >care if it gets sent around. Let's say you had some oddball topic >that 20 people wanted to discuss. They are prolific--they >post lots of messages. The group will LOOK "useful"--it will certainly >have plenty in it... but does it serve the net at large? Couldn't >a mailing list have done a better job? The amount of waste >involved in the net is almost unimagineable. Mailing lists could >serve many interested people far better in many cases than newsgroups >being sent everywhere. This is very accurate. How many times have we come up with a group (not to offend anyone here, just trying to come up with a meaningful possible example) like the proposed distributed operating systems newsgroup that only a small handful of people will post to and read seriously, and 90% of the people who aren't actually working on a distributed OS but screamed YES to the group's creation will unsubscribe it within a couple of months? I've done it, I imagine most other people have as well. This is not good. I still don't agree with the vote fraud issue Lauren raised, but I do think that we ought to take a very careful look at what we create. I also agree with the idea that a summary of votes on newsgroups including net address of sender, vote, and possibly some indication of whether this was a "yes, I'd be interested in reading that" or "yes, I have a lot to say on that matter and would like to discuss it with other people". More ideas? I think that we ought to seriously consider mailing lists for the more arcane groups; things like net.rec.disc (which I voted for, by the way, then unsubscribed) should have started as mailing lists and never become groups. Thanks for shedding the light, Lauren, -- The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291) alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj ...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj
msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader) (09/01/85)
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.UUCP) has made a number of criticisms of the standard newsgroup creation process. One of his points is: > One thing we can do ... All newsgroup voting should > be conducted via a disinterested third party. The person who > proposes a group should not be the one to count the votes and > receive the arguments. A third party should be the one with > this "honor," ideally someone who couldn't care less about the > proposed group in question. I think that what we really want is mod.news.group. If we had mod.news.group, the procedure for creating a group could be: [1] Demonstrate need by traffic elsewhere (same as now). [2] Post a message to mod.news.group proposing the group. [3] Both followup arguments AND simple votes are sent to mod.news.group. Simple votes are buffered by the moderator. New contributions, like arguments for or against the group or proposed name changes, are posted. The moderator may call for a sub-vote on these, if appropriate. [4] After a suitable time, the moderator posts a summary message containing a list of everyone who voted and which way, a summary of points of view expressed, their [the moderator's] own statement of the apparent consensus. [5] The group is then created, or not. Newsgroup deletions would work the same way, except for the reversal of the sense of the test in [1]. Some people will obviously object to this scheme because they won't trust a moderator. I think there are a number of people on the net who have demonstrated that they know its workings and who we can agree to trust, and the moderator should be such a person. There would have to be a place for people who feel they were mistreated by the moderator, I suppose; we could keep net.news.group for that. Now, I can't be the moderator; I spend too much time with the net as it is, and I can't afford to increment that at all. So what I'm calling for here is somebody to volunteer to moderate mod.news.group (and perhaps change the name so that we don't have to create mod.news too, though maybe we can think of a use for that). The procedure for creating mod.news.group shall, I hope, be: [1] Many votes posted to net.news.group have demonstrated a need, and Lauren's posting points out another reason. [2] SOMEBODY VOLUNTEERS TO BE MODERATOR. [3] Yes or no votes for mod.news.group are MAILED to the volunteer. New arguments for or against are posted to net.news.group. Statements of the form "I refuse to accept that person as a fair moderator" are posted to net.news.group, but there won't be any of those. [4] The consensus is favorable and the group is created. [5] After some months, we evaluate things and maybe get rid of net.news.group. Now, if nobody is going to volunteer, there's no need for discussion. So, no direct followups to this message, please! Mark Brader
preece@ccvaxa.UUCP (09/03/85)
> Let's say you had some oddball topic that 20 people wanted to discuss. > They are prolific--they post lots of messages. The group will LOOK > "useful"--it will certainly have plenty in it... but does it serve the > net at large? Couldn't a mailing list have done a better job? /* > Written 3:50 am Aug 30, 1985 by lauren@vortex.UUCP in > ccvaxa:net.news.group */ ---------- In what sense does a mailing list do a better job? (1) It is less visible to new readers, since it isn't just there to be browsed on every site. (2) The traffic still has to be passed along the route to each reader, as mail. In some cases that will mean MORE net traffic than if the notes had been passed as news. All you save is storage at intervening sites, which could as well be restricted by a short expiration time, and traffic on links not leading to readers of the mailing list. I wonder how significant that is. This is not to say that I don't approve of mailing lists. I think they're a good idea and may represent the wave of the future, since they involve an editing step where value is added by the removal of chaff and the collation of related material. I think, though, that the advantage they offer is to their readers, not to the net in general. -- scott preece gould/csd - urbana ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece
tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) (09/03/85)
A few weeks ago, I suggested that the current mindless flaming discussions in net.news.group be abandoned as a means of selecting new news groups. Instead, all new groups should begin as mailing lists; if they have high membership and high volume, they could be "promoted". (Of course, some mailing lists, like the one I run for minority religions, should always be mailing lists and not become public newsgroups.) This suggestion was apparently too sensible; people would rather stick with a system that lets them speculate on fraud and call people idiots for being interested in some subject. Or perhaps it was too bone-headed to be worth comment. In either case, I would appreciate people stopping for a moment in the frenzied course of ripping through the news, forgetting that they hate me, considering the merits and deficiencies of this idea, and posting a few words on the subject. Thank you. -=- Tim Maroney, Carnegie-Mellon University, Networking ARPA: Tim.Maroney@CMU-CS-K uucp: seismo!cmu-cs-k!tim CompuServe: 74176,1360 audio: shout "Hey, Tim!"
dww@stl.UUCP (David Wright) (09/04/85)
In article <765@vortex.UUCP> lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes: ... >speak out against it. The vast majority couldn't care less and >won't bother to say anything. This latter group doesn't intend to read it, I believe that a lot of netters won't bother to say anything but WILL read new groups, at least long enough to find if they're useful. I usually subscribe to all the new groups we get in Europe (mcvax is rather selective!), then unsubscribe to about half of them later. But I only vote on those I'm PARTICULARLY interested in - and clearly from the numbers most netters never vote re any new groups. I believe that new groups should be fairly easy to start, subject to discussion in this newsgroup followed by a reasonable positive vote. But a similar process to REMOVE them should be carried out if the new group turns out to be largely unused, or has a very high junk/goodie ratio. I understand from recent postings that we're 60% or more to saturation in no. of groups and in group name buffer space - please would whoever maintains the news SW increase the limits on these, so that when (say) 97% of sites have the new version, new groups are not quite such a scarce resource. Yes I realise it may take 2 years to reach that happy state, but if the change is not done now we will still have the same problems in 2 years time!
hutch@shark.UUCP (Stephen Hutchison) (09/05/85)
In article <517@cmu-cs-k.ARPA> tim@cmu-cs-k.ARPA (Tim Maroney) writes: >A few weeks ago, I suggested that the current mindless flaming discussions >in net.news.group be abandoned as a means of selecting new news groups. >Instead, all new groups should begin as mailing lists; if they have high >membership and high volume, they could be "promoted". (Of course, some >mailing lists, like the one I run for minority religions, should always be >mailing lists and not become public newsgroups.) This is an interesting idea; the current net structure doesn't seem to support it. Some changes would have to be made. I suggest the following setup FOR DISCUSSION: There are three classes of newsgroup: Wide-Open what we have now; anyone can post, distribution limited by the Distribution: line Moderated we have something like this now. Moderated mail goes to a central moderation point, and is bundled and posted by the program or person who filters that group. MailingList a new entity. Currently mailing lists aren't handled by the news software. I propose that a mailing list be handled by subscription only. If a user at a site wants a mailing list, then some upstream site(s) are requested to pass it on. The upstream sites need not keep copies of mailing list postings, except for the duration of the "send" downstream. When a person wishes to reply to an article in the mailing list, the article is sent to the central moderation point for the list, just like any other moderated news. The moderator of mailing lists could post very brief summaries (ala mod.motss) of the traffic on the list, to a central group. The existance of the list would be posted in a central place like mod.announce. Maybe in a separate article? Promotion of a mailing list to a moderated or open group is done by adding a separate group. Namespace for mailing list is created by using the prefix mail.whatever so that if a mailing list for music flamers is created, it would become mail.music.flame in the netnews namespace. Subscription to a list is done by sending a request to the moderator. Only in very special cases can anyone be denied read-access to a mailing list, but the moderator decides if a posting is inappropriate, irrelevant, or duplicates other articles in the list. Creating a mailing list is done by sending mail to one of the appropriately empowered net-deities or by the appropriate control message. Requests to pass the group downstream can be automated, or the system administrator can choose to make all requests be handled manually. The drawbacks: The upstream sites still have the cost of supporting the downstream sites. The upstream sites still have to deal with mail. It adds to the stuff that news has to support, and to the software which has to be supported. The advantages: It provides a public software mechanism for mediating mail lists. The process of creating and accessing mailing lists becomes more simple; the frustration of trying to get onto a mailing list is alleviated. Several current newsgroups could easily be reverted into mailing lists. Unaddressed issues: What happens when a mailinglist moderator decides to move/quit/goes away? What happens when a mailing list becomes inactive? Mailing lists would take up space in one place, /usr/spool/news/mail instead of many many copies per machine. Could this cause problems? Hutch
david@ukma.UUCP (David Herron, NPR Lover) (09/06/85)
In article <3500005@ccvaxa> preece@ccvaxa.UUCP writes: >In what sense does a mailing list do a better job? (1) It is less >visible to new readers, since it isn't just there to be browsed on >every site. (2) The traffic still has to be passed along the route >to each reader, as mail. In some cases that will mean MORE net traffic >than if the notes had been passed as news. All you save is storage at >intervening sites, which could as well be restricted by a short >expiration time, and traffic on links not leading to readers of the >mailing list. I wonder how significant that is. I don't think so. Take a newsgroup like fa.railroad for instance. I'm fairly certain nobody here reads that group and none of our downstream sites do either. What purpose is there to our receiving that newsgroup. (It doesn't have to be fa.railroad, say that NOBODY around here had a mac instead, then we'd be talking about a huge group). Or lets change it a little. Somebody (one site) downstream wants to read the group. Why should I pay long distance (and all the people between me and the downstream site) so they can read the group. Wouldn't it be better for them to connect to my feed SOLEY for the purpose of picking up that group? Take that to an extreme and you have mailing lists. Solutions: (1) Keep some newsgroups that are widely used (and easily justified). I'm talking unix-wizards, net.lang.all, mod.all, net.announce.all, net.misc, etc. Then frequently announce new mailing lists in something appropriate among the global groups you keep. (2) Set up some sort of "tree" which minimally passes articles to the outlying sites. Maybe some software could be set up to help with this? -- --- 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!
preece@ccvaxa.UUCP (09/11/85)
> In article <3500005@ccvaxa> preece@ccvaxa.UUCP writes: > >In what sense does a mailing list do a better job? (1) It is less > >visible to new readers, since it isn't just there to be browsed on > >every site. (2) The traffic still has to be passed along the route > >to each reader, as mail. In some cases that will mean MORE net traffic > >than if the notes had been passed as news. > > >I wonder how significant that is. > chuqui@nsc replies: > Oh, I do so hate to put a damper on anargument, but lets try using > facts for once and see what happens... > ... detailed calculation showing that mailing lists are more > efficient up to a crossover point somewhere between 40 and 100... > Putting together this article I have finally figured out why so few > people bother with facts while arguing on the net. It took me about 2 > hours to put the math together and a lot of thinking (in other words, > work...) It is a lot easier to play with supposition and opinion, and I > guess we get lazy after a while... ---------- Thanks for the work. I didn't have the energy or the numbers to do it. On the other hand, it says just what I said, only in a little more detail: "In some cases [distribution as a mailing list] will mean MORE net traffic...". The assumptions used in the calculation seem pretty reasonable. On the other hand, a number of people have recently suggested that backbone sites should have more say in voting that leaf sites, and they are the sites whose traffic is more heavily affected by the changeover (if I ran a mailing list with 50 people getting it, the link from me through uiucdcs and ihnp4 would get all 50 copies of every distribution and every response, as opposed to one copy in news form). The assumptions specifically weight all sites evenly. Actually, I would have guessed the breakeven would be a little HIGHER than chuqui calculated. My point was just that there was a breakeven point and that going to mailing lists wasn't a panacea. -- scott preece gould/csd - urbana ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!preece