brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (01/19/85)
You will all recall various discussions over the past few years about the soon-to-come death of the net under its own weight. So the question now becomes, why didn't this happen? The answer is that the net has reached a kind of equilibrium. As net traffic has gotten heavier and noisier, more and more people are leaving it, or reading far less. So now the more people the net attracts, the more people it scares away. So in a sense, perhaps for many the net has already died, as predicted. I joined the net almost 4 years ago, and then everybody read everything. Now I only read a small subset of groups, and I say "n" to about 80% of the articles in groups I do read. I can't afford to spend time on articles that include the text of other articles, or don't have descriptive subjects. Sometimes if I enter a group and I see too any articles waiting, I just skip the whole group. The more I have to read the less I want to read it. I am not alone. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
dmmartindale@watcgl.UUCP (Dave Martindale) (01/20/85)
I couldn't make it through the list of groups that I do read without the aid of a few of the features of "rn". In many groups, when I am first asked if I want to read a particular group, I type '=' which gets me a list of the Subject line for each pending article. Often, I can simply throw them all away with 'c'. All articles with the same subject as the current article (which is usually most of the followups) can be junked with 'k' or 'K'. In other cases, the "/regular expression/:j" method is necessary. I highly recommend these techniques. Now if only I knew how to tell in advance that an article was composed almost entirely of a reference to a previous article....
alb@alice.UUCP (Adam L. Buchsbaum) (01/20/85)
I don't think you can consider it death to reach equilibrium (unless your talking Universal scale here). Everything tends towards equilibrium. I don't think any system of news can sustain an infinite period of growth. I'm not saying that B news is the best way. When it came out, maybe it was; maybe it is; maybe it hasn't yet been. We won't know until someone writes something else, will we? Until then, I suggest we either put our efforts to helping that person or put them into keeping the net from slipping from equilibrium into decline. Adam
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuqui & MacDuff) (01/23/85)
>You will all recall various discussions over the past few years about >the soon-to-come death of the net under its own weight. > >So the question now becomes, why didn't this happen? > >The answer is that the net has reached a kind of equilibrium. >As net traffic has gotten heavier and noisier, more and more people >are leaving it, or reading far less. So now the more people the net >attracts, the more people it scares away. So in a sense, perhaps for >many the net has already died, as predicted. > >I joined the net almost 4 years ago, and then everybody read everything. >Now I only read a small subset of groups, and I say "n" to about 80% of >the articles in groups I do read. I can't afford to spend time on articles >that include the text of other articles, or don't have descriptive subjects. >Sometimes if I enter a group and I see too any articles waiting, I just >skip the whole group. The more I have to read the less I want to read it. > >I am not alone. >-- >Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473 I should also point out fro the above that a lot of the new users like Frank Adrian are driving out a lot of the old users like Brad Templeton. We aren't getting the same kind of users we used to have, and I think the overall quality of the postings in general has gone way down. It just isn't bodies we need to count, it is the intelligence within them, and I am not terribly sure that we've done much more that spread the total net IQ over a much wider number of bodies... chuq -- From the ministry of silly talks: Chuq Von Rospach {allegra,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA National Semiconductor does not require useless disclaimers on posted material that is obviously not posted by company spokesmen...
gam@amdahl.UUCP (gam) (01/24/85)
I've noticed that when we have had political discussions in
ca.politics (a CA-only newsgroup), the quality was much better
than net.politics. I attribute this simply to the smaller numbers
of people envolved, and the ease with which you could follow the
(fewer) threads of discussion.
If the net "falls apart", it will probably splinter into regional
nets, because this would generate a smaller stream of articles.
(This appears to be the concern, that there are "too many" articles).
I would rather this came about naturally, however, instead of
some "clever" person (Mr. Vance?) deciding who is "worthy" of
using the network. "Naturally" means that one by one sites will
say "sorry, we don't take 'net' distribution anymore" and limit
it to regional groups (hey, I'm still proposing a 'west'
distribution!).
This would be good and bad, of course. The quality of regional
nets would improve, I suspect, but for the most part they may be cut
off from each other: who will want to transmit (and pay for) all of the
New England stuff to the West Coast? Alas, the pool of knowledge
(and other stuff) is reduced.
Stargate may solve this problem; any technology that lowers the
cost of Usenet will help maintain its current topography. But if
the 'regional net' scenario results -- well, it won't be a complete
tragedy, just a different sort of net.
--
Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gamsylvain@lvbull.UUCP (Sylvain Langlois RCG-ARS) (01/25/85)
I typed [y] to your article. That was not a mistake: most of the time I press the [n] key also....( for statistics only: I typed [n] 25 times this morning! ========== Sylvain Langlois (...mcvax!vmucnam!lvbull!sylvain) PS: If you read this, I feel sorry for you, it didn't really worth it!!