chuqui@nsc.UUCP (The Phantom) (02/27/85)
It is becomming clearer and clearer that the network is approaching
overload-- we are simply getting too much volume for the average (or even
me!) to deal with appropriately. I've been thinking about the philosophical
and humanistic approaches to viewing the network, and I've made some basic
(and potentially incorrect) conclusions based on my experience. These went
out to a good number of the other people who work widely with the network
for comment, but I see today comments in net.unix and net.unix-wizards
from Mike Muuss and from Lauren about overloading in the arpa/usenet
interfaces in those groups, I've seen serious problems in a large number of
other groups as well-- net.general, net.singles, just about everywhere. I
no longer feel comfortable waiting for a first round of comments before
taking my thoughts public-- I'm not at all sure we really can afford to do
a lot of arguing-- we've done a lot of that without really getting
anywhere. It's time to do something about the geometrically increasing
volume we're seeing, ESPECIALLY the volume of unneeded duplicates and
useless garbage showing up.
The following are my thoughts on the subject. Many are controversial, some
may be unworkable, and all of them are guaranteed to upset someone. I
think we need to realize the net is too large to keep EVERYONE happy, and
start realizing that tradeoffs need to be made. if we don't do them in a
coordinated and thought out manner, I'm afraid someone will force it on
us-- Arpa groups will cut off and limit our access to their knowledge,
backbones will arbitrarily cut out groups for cost reduction, or certain
groups and users we can ill afford to lose will simply get tired of the
junk and leave the net. It's time to do something, folks.
I suggest heartily that comments you have on this be made to me by mail
unless you really have something the net needs to hear. I will be happy to
summarize the feedback I get and modify my proposals as needed, but I want
to minimize the added amount of unneeded volume we have going around.
chuq
----
[Ed note: this is excerpted from private mail, the starting point being
that the current usenet documentation does more to confuse the user than
inform them, and goes off onto my normal tangents...]
I agree with Mark and Roy-- the documentation is woefully inadequate. I
think the biggest reason for that is the fact that the audience has
changed, and the net hasn't kept up with it.
I don't agree with the thinking that a technological answer can be found.
At the basest level, all we'll do is start up the fascist wars, and all the
SA's that won't be bothered will simply refuse to upgrade or comment out
the 'offending' code. The places where the code is needed most won't have
it anyway, and those that do won't really need it-- we'll be inhibiting the
parts of the user community that don't need inhibition. Realistically, if
we can't implement a software solution at the backbone sites, we can't
expect it to work-- aliases seems to work well for mapping bad groups,
because things get fixed up as the news moves around, but controlling users
can only be done at that level if we set up 'hit' lists, something I think
I'm philosophically opposed to.
The net has changed, but I don't think our attitudes have changed as fast.
We still look for technological fixes for problems-- this might have worked
with 50 or 100 sites that cooperated with the net, but with 2000 sites
running A news, B news (18 versions), notes, mlisp in emacs, and GLOS knows
what else, getting a global solution installed is useless. We can fix parts
of the problems at the backbone level, we can fix parts of the problems by
fixing news (and notes) and cajoling people to upgrade, but we can only do
so if people think it is in their own interest. SA's won't consider
anything that takes part of their time to be in their interest, no matter
how small the time, no matter how large the benefit, simply because they
don't want to have to think about netnews and maintenance.
This is similar to the problem of message responsibility. If we required
SA's to monitor their users postings, or to sign a note admitting
responsibility for anything, they simply wouldn't be on the net.
Officially, at least.
Perhaps it is time to stop thinking about usenet as a collection of
hardware and software-- those have become quite secondary to the people
involved-- and look for humanistic solutions to our problems.
The first step is documentation. Perhaps it is time to do to our
introductory documentation what I did to Emily Post a while back (was that
a whole year ago?? sigh). I might even volunteer to rewrite the silly
thing, if nobody else will. It should emphasize how to work with the
network, not how the network works-- oriented towards the people and not
the technology.
The other thing I think we need to look at seriously is the user interface
to the news. Not just the program-- rn is a BIG step forward, and I'd love
to see readnews and vnews bite the dust-- but the actual structure of the
network, especially in the topic naming space. There are some large and
serious problems:
o Misnamed groups. Many groups are incorrectly or ambiguously named.
o Too many groups. Too many groups have been created for the wrong
reasons, and simply don't go away.
o Static and inconsistent naming spaces. The naming space doesn't
change as the need changes, it simply expands. The expansion, even
worse, is haphazard. There is no way for a beginning user to even start
to figure out what is happening-- he has no guides.
I'd like to mention the concept of 'chunking' here. Essentially,
psychologists have found that people can put together groups of about 7
to 10 objects and understand them. A good naming space would allow us to
'chunk' out the various topics in ways that allow people to comprehend the
boundary levels.
There are a lot of things that we can do to smooth out the network
interfaces with little effort, if we decide to do them. First, we need to
trim the deadwood (back to 'nuke wobegon', right chuq? right....). I've
fought this battle before, and it might be time to fight it again. The
basic argument against getting rid of groups is technological (the software
can handle it, what bother is it?). The problem, however, is humanistic--
I don't care WHAT the software can do, if the people can't deal with it,,
and I think the net is showing signs of people's (especially novices)
ability to cope with the complexity of the naming space. The first level of
reducing complexity is removing those groups that aren't being used--
nobody will really notice, but the novice won't look at an active list and
wonder if maybe the message ought to go there instead (or worse, too!).
The second step ought to be recognizing the advantage of general purpose
topics. Why create net.psych when net.sci allows a greater range of related
topics to share the name space? A good example of this is the set
{net.lan,net.dcom,net.lsi}, all of which could be compacted into
net.hardware with no loss of usability with the advantage that all hardware
now has a home. We can make similar comments about other groups--
net.research, net.usoft, net.cog-eng, and some others could all become
net.software. Now, instead of 10 groups, we have two, with solid, simple
topic definitions that don't overlap with other groups and allow a wide
range of topics to be discussed. As an alternative I point to the recent
discussions in net.tv.drwho about the inappropriateness of Prisoner
discussions in that group-- valid because of the limited appeal of the
group. I'm planning on creating net.tv.pbs as an alternative-- general
purpose enough to be used for a wide range of discussions. I wish I'd seen
this before I created net.tv.drwho, as a matter of fact.
But I think that for the naming space to be really useful it needs to be
flexible. That means easy construction of topics when they are useful AND
easy destruction of them when they stop being useful. Again, this has been
proposed, and the main arguement against it is technological-- 'the
software can handle it, leave it around in case we need it again'. From a
humanistic view, it adds complexity, we ought to remove it and recreate the
damned thing if we DO need it again-- it got created once, didn't it? At
this point the naming space is a significant disadvantage to us because I
and others fight creation of almost ALL groups simply because once they
exist they NEVER go away. We don't have groups we could use (such as
net.sources.msdos) because we're afraid to create groups we might not be
able to get rid of later-- essentially the existence of net.wobegon keeps
us from having net.sources.msdos. You figure out whether the existence of
an unused group for the listeners an NPR radio show is worth more than the
existence of public domain ms-dos software. I have my own ideas, but I also
won't allow creation of groups without a precedent of existing volume
simply because we don't have a way of removing those without volume. So, we
can't get rid of wobegon, and we can't create msdos because of it.
There is a third level involved as well. From a humanistic viewpoint, I
think certain newsgroups are detrimental to the overall message content of
all groups on the network. We say we are against the rabid flaming that is
engulfing the network (something I, unfortunately, let myself get into
recently as well...) yet we not only tolerate it, we give flaming its own
group. That isn't toleration, that is outgright acceptance. The argument
for net.flame that 'it keeps the flames off the rest of the net' doesn't
really wash. It doesn't, as any group can tell you. What I think it DOES to
is semi-conciously tell people that FLAMING IS OK, when it really isn't--
flaming takes a lot of bandwidth, flaming causes a lot of pain, and except
for certain personal satisfactions for getting something 'off my chest', it
doesn't do a single positive thing for the network except raise phone
bills. I'd like to see net.flame abolished, and have it made perfectly
clear that people are expected to act in a mature and professional manner--
we COULD make it stick, you know. If people know that they are going to get
beaten bloody for flaming, they'll be more careful. But now, a few of us
'self-righteous fascists' scream, but flaming is really acceptable, so
nothing much happens.
I could make similar arguments for other groups as well-- net.abortion,
net.origins, the proposed net.porn-- all were set up to 'isolate' the
discussion, but none of the discussions really stay isolated, they insist
on moving into other groups because the zealots want you to listen ANYWAY,
even if you are unsubscribed. My preference is to get rid of the groups,
and if the discussions that do come up get out of line, stomp on them.
I also think it's time to reconsider net.jokes, but I'm running long as it
is.
It's time to look at the net from the point of view of the person--
especially the naive person-- using the net. To make the net effective for
them we need to take steps to make it understandable. I think we can do
this AND make the net better for the experienced user because the noise
level can be seriously reduced. My basic recommendations are:
o Write decent humanized documentation. We no longer care how the
network works, but how to work on the network, and what the
implications of various actions are.
o Improve the simplicity of the user interface. Rn is the biggest step
in the right direction I've seen yet.
o Improve the simplicity of the network. Removing unneccessary groups,
rationalizing the naming space, and making the naming space flexible
are all strong steps forward in this direction, and better yet, can all
be handled administratively.
o Make a committement to the quality level of the postings. This means
making sure that people realize that certain forms of postings (flames,
80 line inclusions of someone elses article followed by a one line
riposte, unfunnny and repetitive and repulsive 'jokes') are not
acceptable in a mature and professional atmosphere.
I think if we take these steps, we can reduce our current noise level
problems, we can make the net more useful for everyone, and we can solve at
least some of our technological problems (such as modem bandwidth) as well.
comments, of course, are welcome. I realize that some of my suggestions are
rather revolutionary, but I think it is time for a revolutionary change in
thinking. Usenet is no longer driven by the technology or the software, and
hasn't been for a while. It's time we realized that.
chuq
--
From behind the eight ball: Chuq Von Rospach
{cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA
We'll be recording at the Paradise Friday night. Live, on the Death label.jj@alice.UUCP (03/01/85)
I have been slowling abandoning the net, but I really don't think that the reasons are the ones that Chuq advances. It's my feeling that the SNR (signal to noise ratio) of the net is slowly sinking to zero, and the utility is following accordlingly. I've seen several reason for this, which follow (more or less) in order of decreasing importance: 1) Failure on the part of net persons to realize that netnews is a VOLUNTEER organization (if indeed it my be called an organization), and insist/are intent on perverting it to their own use. Various examples are: Religious harrassment (by or to religious people, it doesn't matter) Sexual innuendo (I'll include pro/anti gay flamers here, along with the "feet" crock in net.singles. Refusal to COOPERATE with existing, stated, and obvious (net.women.only comes to mind) rules. 2) Beginner ignorance. I think that it is a necessity on any network with the power of netnews that people must be aware of what/where netnews goes before they use it. I don't think that the "newsgroup clutter" has anything to do with this, I think the lack of MORE, and better organized newsgroups is the real problem. Eliminating newsgroups will, in the short run, provide even MORE traffic for interested people to deal with. In the long run, it will eliminate new discussions and subjects because of precidence. There was some talk, a long time ago, about expiring newsgroups. 3) The insistance of some individuals (I'm not talking Mark, Chuq, Gene, here, please) in regarding the net as their own personal outhouse. There is currently NO way to deal with irresponsible net contributors, and given that many net participants have shown that they are unable to ignore such individuals, chaos is rampant. What to do? 1) There exists no clear, defined, accepted, proposed, or even stated purpose for netnews. There is no overall document that explains how it works, why it works, and what it's existance depends on. Make one. (No, I won't volunteer, I'm too controversial, and I don't have the time to do it RIGHT, either.) 2) There MUST be a database of ALL newsgroups. The first message in every new group should state what that group isintended for. The complete collection of all such articles should be available on line, and outside of postnews, for the interested to peruse. The organization, which is currently random, must be changed. This does indeed involve cooperation on the part of SA's, but it is essential. If this much cooperation cannot be found, there is no purpose in trying much of anything. 3) PLEASE USE RESTRAINT. Don't encourage people who bait you, don't rise to people who WANT to excite you and raise your blood pressure, etc. Pass this message on. In the time I've been on the net, I've seen it grow from 100 people on 20 machines, each talking to the whole audience, and engaging in dialog, to Several thousand people on 100+- machines, using newsgroups and such to engage in dialog, to A few more thousand people, on a few more machines, calling each other names, and engaging in libel/slander of all sorts, to emotional effect. I include here the birth of the net sophist, rhetorical cheater, and the like, to About 10000 people, a good number of them shouting at the top of their lungs, and nobody listening. What does it show? It shows that the net is nothing but a collection of the people ON the net. The current crop (with significant exceptions) is disputatous, rude, and intolerant of any sort of moderate behavior (I almost said moderation. I know better!). I must say that I have at times contributed to the chaos, as has everyone. It's easy to loose your temper, especially when someone tells you that your lifelong theoretical and technical specialization doesn't entitle you to comment on something you've studied for 10 years, or someone tells you that you must be subhuman because you are labelled by them "conservative", or the like, but it's coming time to learn moderate behavior or loose the questionable priveledge of using netnews. I've been talking far too long. Shut up, JJ! -- TEDDY BEARS SURVIVE EVEN IN TODAY'S BULL MARKET. HUG YOURS, IT NEEDS YOU! "...other side, the other man's grass is always greener, some are ..." (allegra,harpo,ulysses)!alice!jj
minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow) (03/02/85)
May I be permitted to define net.wobegon? I don't subscribe to net.news (and deleted net.followup from the newsgroups as it's busy enough already), so flame to me directly. Please note that I use net.wobegon as a metaphor for all the little-used newsgroups that have a widespread, but very narrowly-focussed readership. Other examples would include net.bugs.uucp and net.lang.forth. Chuki argues in part that the existance of net.wobegon precludes in some way the possibliity of adding a "useful" newsgroup such as net.sources.msdos. Since net.sources.mac and net.sources.games were recently added, this seems unlikely. In both cases, a general-audience newsgroup was split when the number of submissions on a narrowly-focussed topic increased beyond a "background-noise" level. The same thing happened a few years ago to net.music and net.religion. Since, with readnews, you can unsubscribe by a single keystroke, the existance of many groups shouldn't be seen as a problem (unless you try to read everything) -- assuming that discussions stay reasonably localized. This seems to happen for the technical newsgroups (net.lang.c, for example), and works reasonably well for multiple postings to, for example, net.med and net.legal. There are, of course, counter examples: usenet readers probably recall a recent discussion of celtic astronomy that took place in just about every newsgroup EXCEPT net.wobegon. (Another reason to keep it: it gives us a place to hide:-) In summary, if usenet retains non-work-related news groups, there should be a place for a few widespread fanatics to gather without interference from/to the rest of the crowd. Martin Minow decvax!minow
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (03/04/85)
> I have been slowling abandoning the net, but I really don't think > that the reasons are the ones that Chuq advances. It's my feeling > that the SNR (signal to noise ratio) of the net is slowly sinking > to zero, and the utility is following accordlingly. > Perhaps what you see is simply that, as the net includes more people, it includes more people more different from you than before, so you (and each individual) finds less of the total to be interesting. This may be a technical or political problem, but it is not bad per se. > [...] > In the time I've been on the net, I've seen it grow from > 100 people on 20 machines, each talking to the whole audience, > and engaging in dialog, to > Several thousand people on 100+- machines, using newsgroups > and such to engage in dialog, to > A few more thousand people, on a few more machines, calling > each other names, and engaging in libel/slander of all sorts, > to emotional effect. I include here the birth of the net sophist, > rhetorical cheater, and the like, to > About 10000 people, a good number of them shouting > at the top of their lungs, and nobody listening. > > What does it show? > > It shows that the net is nothing but a collection of the > people ON the net. The current crop (with significant exceptions) > is disputatous, rude, and intolerant of any sort of > moderate behavior (I almost said moderation. I know better!). > I would contend that is an illusion caused by the fact that disputatiousness, rudeness, and intolerance are more eye-catching (mind-catching?) than sober, common-sense behavior (whatever one defines that to be). The net is (to me) a peculiar cross between private communication and performance. It is the performance aspect (the separation of performer and audience helps) which tempts people to be disputatious and rude, and to do it with such infuriating elan. At least, that is what has tempted me on occasion - like jj, I've contributed my share. I don't see how that temptation can be reasonably removed. I'm not sure how this helps the overload problem - in fact, the very existence of this discussion so far may have done just the opposite. Jeff Winslow (just a joe user)
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (The Phantom) (03/04/85)
In article <49@decvax.UUCP> minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow) writes: >Since, with readnews, you can unsubscribe by a single keystroke, >the existance of many groups shouldn't be seen as a problem >(unless you try to read everything) -- assuming that discussions >stay reasonably localized. Martin has, unfortunately, misinterpreted my comment. My reasons for compacting the naming space are centered on reducing the complexities and ambiguities for the POSTER, not the reader. As he says, it is trivial to unsubscribe to to groups you don't want to read. The problem comes in when you want to post something. Many users, especially the newer ones, are treated to a wide range of overlapping, non-mnemonic, ambiguous, and generally misnamed groups to choose from. In many cases their solution is to simply post to all possible groups, either together or (sigh) separately. My hope is to work out an improved naming space that cleans up a lot of the problems of the existing one and makes it easier to figure out the 'correct' places to post something. The biggest problems we have on the net are not with the readers but with the posters, and a lot of the problem is simple confusion. I'd like to remove some of that confusion. I should point out that I have gotten a lot of mail on the naming space compaction, and many people are worried that I'm going to hack and burn my way down to 10 or 15 groups. I may have well have implied that, but it is not my intention-- chalk it up to less than clear writing. I expect to see a lot of re-arranging and renaming, and some compaction, but I don't see wholesale slaughter of existing groups-- if it serves a purpose, it ought to be there. Overcompacting the naming space solves a lot of usenet's problems-- unfortunately it would simply create a lot of new problems we wouldn't have the experience to solve. I'd rather work with the problems I'm familiar with, thank you. chuq -- From behind the eight ball: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA We'll be recording at the Paradise Friday night. Live, on the Death label.
jj@alice.UUCP (03/05/85)
Jeff Winslow suggests that the reason for my perception of the net's SNR going to 0 might be based on my presumed interest in various subjects, an effective ad-hominem attack if I ever saw one... <And perhaps not even deliberate> I do suppose that I should elucidate on what I consider a "low SNR". I personally see a clear difference between articles that exhibit 1) Clearly thought out, nicely explained, and factually based arguments, and 2) Emotional rhetoric, manipulitive rhetoric, deliberate noise injection, etc, REGARDLESS of what point is espoused. When I see the articles of type 2) becoming prevalent, and THEN becoming almost universal, I give the net a low SNR rating (sort of like TV news). When I see clearly thought out arguments, I increment the SNR up a bit. If such articles are common (I remember one short spell of several months several years ago, when net.flame was the only place home to polite discussion, mostly because it was poorly read) I give the net a high SNR. Certainly it's a perceived rating, not any absolute rating, but I suggest to Mr. Winslow, etc, that a LOT of people are making the same observation of late, so it's a COMMON PERCEPTION. Given that we are talking about a perceptually based measure, and the measure is generally agreed as failing, a problem (by defination) exists. Mr. Winslow also later suggests that I may perceive that the net is disputation beyond reason because I notice only disputatious articles. Mr. Winslow should consider that I toss almost all articles that I even suspect to be of a disputatious nature immediately without reading even the first page (which is 66 lines for this terminal...), and that I still find the "second order" dispute to be extreme and unwarranted. I respectively submit that contending a problem does not exist on the current net is analogous to digging a hole in the sand below high tide and burying one's head. -- TEDDY BEARS SURVIVE EVEN IN TODAY'S BULL MARKET. HUG YOURS, IT NEEDS YOU! "...other side, the other man's grass is always greener, some are ..." (allegra,harpo,ulysses)!alice!jj
john@x.UUCP (John Woods) (03/05/85)
Having accompanied <places>!jj in the trek from a USENET you could draw on one type-written page to today, I generally agree with his conclusions. However, I think that it is not that "the current crop is the..." worst ever; I can recall a few cheeseheads from the early days (``Bimmler'' (which may or may not have been Bimmler) and erewhon!root (which lead to the first Repetitive-Signature-Messages!) come to mind). Unfortunately, the problem is this: when 5 out of 500 people are generating garbage, the amount of time reading garbage (and even responses to said garbage) is small. When 200 out of 20000 people are generating garbage [The conclusion is left as an exercise for the reader]. Perhaps USENET will collapse, not under the weight of the traffic, but under the sheer weight of contributors. Not afraid to let postnews sign my name, (now there's a Blast from the Past!) -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (617) 626-1101 ...!decvax!frog!john, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw%mit-ccc@MIT-XX.ARPA Sorry, I don't feel deep right now.
bsa@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) (03/06/85)
> Article <3429@alice.UUCP>, from jj@alice.UUCP +---------------- | I have been slowling abandoning the net, but I really don't think | that the reasons are the ones that Chuq advances. It's my feeling | that the SNR (signal to noise ratio) of the net is slowly sinking | to zero, and the utility is following accordlingly. +---------------- Both. People tend to use newsgroups to do what the 'n' key (and rn's 'kill' functionality) are supposed to do. +---------------- | .........................................................I think the lack | of MORE, and better organized newsgroups is the real problem. Eliminating | newsgroups will, in the short run, provide even MORE traffic for interested | people to deal with. In the long run, it will eliminate new discussions | and subjects because of precidence. +---------------- No. Fewer newsgroups, plus "rn" for KILL files, makes for fewer postings to multiple newsgroups. The newsgroup names are chosen to mark out basic areas. People in net.hardware who don't want to hear about, say, the 68000, can put "MC68000" (or 680x0, etc.) in their KILL files. "rn", being much much more user friendly than readnews, should replace readnews anyway. +---------------- | 1) There exists no clear, defined, accepted, proposed, | or even stated purpose for netnews. There is no overall document | that explains how it works, why it works, and what it's existance | depends on. Make one. (No, I won't volunteer, I'm too controversial, | and I don't have the time to do it RIGHT, either.) +---------------- I'm writing one now. As to whether it'll be useable or not... (I have a habit of not saying what I consider to be obvious, but others do not find so.) +---------------- | moderate behavior (I almost said moderation. I know better!). +---------------- I don't know why. Moderation is also necessary to save this net, unless these people would rather start running their own subnets in order to keep their "freedom". (...and then watch them do 180-degree turns!) --bsa -- Brandon Allbery, decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!bsa, ncoast!bsa@case.csnet (etc.) 6504 Chestnut Road Independence, Ohio 44131 +1 216 524 1416 -- CIS 74106,1032 -=> Does the Doctor make house calls? <=-
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (03/07/85)
> Jeff Winslow suggests that the reason for my perception of the > net's SNR going to 0 might be based on my presumed interest > in various subjects, an effective ad-hominem attack if I ever > saw one... <And perhaps not even deliberate> "Suggests" is a good description of my intent, "attack" is not. I apologize if my intent was not put effectively into practice. Must every question regarding someone else's perceptions be referred to as an "ad-hominem attack"? If so, I think the term loses some of its meaning. > I respectively submit that contending a problem does not exist on the > current net is analogous to digging a hole in the sand below > high tide and burying one's head. As I said, "(there) may be a technical or political problem, ..." yours in moderation (did I say that?), Jeff Winslow