lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (11/19/84)
There will certainly be some sort of organization behind any satellite netnews broadcasting (if for no other reason than to logistically interface with the satellite carrier). However, note that satellite broadcasting won't ever be FORCED on any site. Sites that want to continue receiving all materials by phone (so long as they are willing to pay for them, one presumes) will continue as they have up to now. However, it is my own opinion that sooner or later the current system will break down from sheer volume, and that legal liabilities are just as present in the current system as in a satellite system. We've all just been lucky up to now. --Lauren--
chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Cheshire Chuqui) (11/20/84)
In article <450@vortex.UUCP> lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes: >However, it is my own opinion that sooner or later the current >system will break down from sheer volume Remember a few months back when there was a discussion about whether the net would collapse in September when the students came back? Last I looked, it was November... Seriously, I've noticed a distinct change in the way news is travelling over the last few months. I was just as worried as Lauren that the net would suffocate on its own success-- now I'm rather confident that the net is on rather strong foundations-- the net is no longer growing without bounds, it is starting to metamorph. It is, mostly, maturing. Moderated groups, while not completely operational now because of black holes, are starting to clean up some of the real ugly areas on the net and has the potential for doing a lot more. Even more important to me is the creation of some of the mailing lists such as the Christian list and mail.feminists. These lists help to make sure that the information goes only to the people that are interested in it. In many ways, they take moderated groups to the logical end because there is a moderator keeping the junk out, and a group of people on the other who are interested, and those that aren't interested don't even have to bother to store or ignore it. Some people have looked at the mailing lists as restrictive-- I look at it as just the opposite. I suggest that we not only admit to their existence, I suggest we publicsize them, promote them, and consider creating new ones where appropriate. A lot of the new groups people keep suggesting would work MUCH better as mailing lists because the audience really is rather small (how about mail.radio_control, mail.music.jazz, etc...). There are some groups that will always be better served by the widest possible audience (such as unix-wizards, sources, singles, etc...) but a lot of the marginal groups might be better off as mailing lists. If people are interested, I'm willing to keep a list of publicly available mailing lists and post that list on a regular basis. this list should have the name of the list, a short description of it's purpose, and a contact person for getting list. If you are running a list that is open to the public (rather than private or invitation only) feel free to drop me a line. comments, of course, are welcome. chuq [Usenet may be a slow parody of itself, but even so it tends to come up with appropriate solutions when needed. Sometimes in spite of itself. That is what makes it work, that is what makes it fun to be around] -- From the Department of Bistromatics: Chuq Von Rospach {cbosgd,decwrl,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA This plane is equipped with 4 emergency exits, at the front and back of the plane and two above the wings. Please note that the plane will be travelling at an average altitude of 31,000 feet, so any use of these exits in an emergency situation will most likely be futile.
jack@vu44.UUCP (Jack Jansen) (12/24/84)
What I understand of the stargate news is that a site will receive
a (probably large) protion of it's news via sattelite. This portion
will be screened by a group of moderators (I'm not sure what for,
is it only to keep garbage out of the transmission, or are there
regulations as to what material can/can not be transmitted?).
I guess that the rest of the news is transferred in the current way.
This creates a big problem :
How will site A know that it shouldn't send a certain article to
site B, because site B has already received it by sattelite?
The IHAVE/SENDME protocol should probably be used, but I remember
some articles saying that this protocol is quite uneconomic.
If we want to cut phone bills by using sattelite news, I think that this
is an issue that should be addressed. It's quite useless to receive
sattelite news if all the articles *also* come in via phone....
One solution would be to recieve only sattelite news, but I wouldn't
like that (Re: the moderator discussion).
Another possible solution might be to let each site know that it's
neighbour has a sattelite connection, so that all articles with 'stargate'
in the path shouldn't be sent there, but this doesn't seem very
fair either. A site that is next to a backbone would receive everything
via telephone, since the stargate site will often be further down
the line than your site.
Am I seeing a problem that isn't there, or is this real?
--
Jack Jansen, {seismo|philabs|decvax}!mcvax!vu44!jack
or ...!vu44!htsa!jacklauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (12/25/84)
Ultimately (not for awhile) I suspect that there will be separate satellite netnews newsgroups that are parallels to various of the conventional newsgroups. Sites could take the conventional groups by phone, or the satellite groups off air, or both. Obviously, the last choice will result in lots of repetition, but if someone really wants to do it they can. The whole idea of the satellite project is to provide a news conduit that will have higher quality, overall, than the network now (that is, more than 80% of the stuff *would* be worth reading!) and that wouldn't be limited by the low speeds of dialup modems and uneven (in terms of time) delivery of messages to various sites. The project will not be forwarding all netnews materials to the satellite. It has never intended to. Given "parallel" groups where appropriate, you could subscribe to net.misc and get 700 separate messages from people explaining what "foo" means, or get satellite netnews and (presumably) get only one or two. In this respect, the satellite groups would be much like the moderated groups, but with a vastly more efficient and faster means of distribution. I remain strongly convinced that as the current unmoderated net traffic increases, the amount of "fluff" in the net will increase far faster than the real meat, with the result that more and more people stop reading many groups. We all know people who have stopped reading groups (simply because they don't have the time or inclination to wade through garbage) who really *should* still be participating. My hope is that the combination of moderated groups and a broadcast means for distribution will result in a higher quality choice of information for those who want it. The "ordinary" network will still be there of course, by phone, for those who want it. But the unmoderated portion will continue to grow and the garbage quotient will rise along with it. Sooner or later, fewer and fewer people will have time to wade through all the muck looking for the occasional gem. (Obviously this situation isn't equally bad on all groups, but you get the idea). And sooner or later, people are going to stop paying to send many of these messages around the network. In any case, screening is to maintain the quality and usefulness of the information, to make the best use of our available bandwidth, and to remove materials that would be considered objectional or unsuitable in a nationwide broadcast medium. If the stargate project was just to provide a high-tech means for broadcasting the current masses of netnews, without any improvement in overall quality, it wouldn't be worth doing. I'm one of those people who has had to stop reading many groups because of the low level of useful material. I'm hoping that together, we can combine common sense and satellites and generate something that we can all be proud of, and that we can all find useful most of the time, not just occasionally. --Lauren-- P.S. Sorry if I seem to be coming down pretty hard on the quality of unmoderated netnews today. But let's face it, things *are* going downhill. And as more sites join in, the volumes, when unmoderated, are going to be, uh, impressive (depressive?), to say the very least... --LW--