Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.UUCP> (07/25/83)
Greetings. Some of you out there may recall my comments on this
subject a couple of Usenix's ago, and my opinions have not altered
since then. In short, I'm sorry gang, but I just don't buy it.
I have nothing against the concept of information utilities (and in
fact I have been involved in the planning of such beasties) but
the Usenet framework simply cannot be coerced into a "commercial"
pattern without total disruption -- with the end result most likely
being FAR fewer sites distributing even less useful information
at HIGHER cost. There is a simple rule that pervades all aspects
of technology, and it applies here as well: "If something isn't
broken, DON'T TRY FIX IT!" And, contrary to the feelings that some
persons may have, Usenet (in general) is NOT BROKEN. Let's consider
some points, both positive and negative:
1) My contention all along has been that, contrary to appearances,
USENET DOES NOT EXIST. Yes friends, even though you are reading
this message, there is no "real" Usenet. What we DO have is a
collection of many random computers happily calling each other
(essentially at random) and spilling various messages onto each
other's disks. There is no central authority, no central control,
no FORCED costs. Each site makes an individual decision regarding
what resources (if any) they can devote to participation in
Usenet activities. If some sites cannot absorb heavy telephone
costs, other sites are free, as they see fit, to subsidize those
less "wealthy" sites. Nobody FORCES sites to poll other sites --
such polling is done when it is considered beneficial to all involved,
and may involve as few or as many newsgroups as desired. If a site
feels that it is no longer beneficial to continue polling a given
site or set of sites, they may discontinue at any time.
The point here is that Usenet provides a very efficient
system for ensuring maximal freedom AND maximal fairness, since
each site only calls those sites that it has decided it can afford
to call and that it wishes (for whatever reasons) to call. This
all takes place without a central authority and proceeds well.
There is no reason to add a layer of bureaucracy! I've seen
similiar situations in the past where well-meaning individuals
have set up such mechanisms to try bring "fairness" and "order" to
a situation. The result is almost always an increase in costs
and a decrease in value. However, some bureaucrats DO get
jobs out of the deal. Whoopee.
2) A central Usenet authority would find itself to be LEGALLY responsible
for most Usenet interactions. This would include possible lawsuits
over slanderous materials and possible copyright violations, dissemination
of possibly obscene material into areas that have strict rules
against such materials (encryption makes no difference from the
legal standpoint), and so forth. I don't think that anyone seriously
wants to take this on in this environment. Right now, since there
really is NO network, there is no single organization that can be
sued or otherwise pinpointed for blame. In fact, since Usenet is
really just lots of separate "private" messages which are being
relayed from point to point, it is probable that materials could not
even be considered to be "published" at all -- which might be a very
desirable situation. Create Usenet, Inc., however -- and this
all changes. You've got an entity to blame now, and the messages have
been formalized into a framework that would probably be considered
to be publishing -- subject to the same rules and regulations as more
conventional publications. I don't think we really want this at
this time.
3) You cannot simply gloss over the fact that Usenet costs are typically
bundled in with other UUCP and communications costs. This lack
of formal differentiation of costs allows many sites with "hard-nosed"
administrators to participate in a fairly free environment with a
minimum of unnecessary bureaucratic interference. If you turn
Usenet into a "line item" on the budget, you are going to find many
sites subjecting news to intense scrutiny, and all but the groups
considered most "relevant" by the adminstrators, regardless of
their actual merit, will be dropped. Maybe this would be more "efficient"
in terms of budget outlay and win you points with the head office --
but is this really what you want? Probably some "rich" sites could
avoid this fate, but I'll give you odds that many sites will find
themselves either cutoff completely or severely restricted.
4) How do you establish a fair "charging" system? Some sites could afford
to pay thousands of dollars a year -- IF administrators would agree
to such an explicit item. Others couldn't afford anything -- just
paying the monthly bill for power and phone lines (not even including
any long distance calls) can be an extreme strain. However, the
persons who submit the best quality messages cannot always be
expected to be located on such "rich" machines -- they're going to
be spread all over, including at sites with little or no budget and
little or no hope of getting approval for formal payments to
Usenet, Inc. Should all of these "less fortunate" people be cut off?
This might leave us with a lot of messages from rich sites -- but
would the overall quality of the net be the same? I say no -- it would
be lower.
I've given this quite a bit of thought, and I do NOT believe it to be
possible to derive a "fair" charging plan for Usenet. The only entity
that would be sure to come out ahead would be Usenet, Inc., itself.
5) The idea of charging persons for submitting items is not reasonable.
Persons who submit useful material should not be penalized for such
practices. A person who wants to answer a question in an area in
which he or she has expertise should not have to pay for the privilege.
It's not even clear if the person ASKING the question should be
charged, since the question (and answers) might be of interest to
a wide range of persons on the net.
I could go on, but I think you get the idea. Now, let's get to the
bottom line. The real "problems" with Usenet don't have to do with
organization or overall costs. As I've pointed out, individual
sites optimize calling and costs as they see fit, and the lack of
a formal organization has certain very significant benefits.
So what's the problem? THE QUALITY OF MESSAGES! That's the bottom
line, in my opinion. We don't REALLY need 30 people telling us
that "BTW" stands for "By The Way". ONE would have sufficed -- and
that's assuming that the question should have been asked on the network
in the first place. A very large percentage of the items on the net
should really be sent as direct mail -- not as netnews articles!
If all of the messages that essentially say the same thing
or that really shouldn't be present at all could be expunged from the
net, I believe we'd find an immense lowering of overall costs, and
a MUCH more useful "network". I am continually hearing from people
who have stopped reading most or all of netnews since they just don't
have the time to filter through the garbage to find a few reasonable
and useful items -- and who can blame them? It's not even the NUMBER
of people that causes the problem -- the network could handle many
more users successfully, since most people don't generate many messages,
most none at all in fact!
There are elements to dealing with this problem successfully. None of
them involves Usenet, Inc. or anything like it. One element is
clearly user education. There really has been no formal attempt to
make sure that all users are properly informed as to the matrix
of customs that make up Usenet. These "customs" should be put into
some sort of more formal framework as quickly as possible.
Another important element (here we go again) is to make better use
of DIGESTS!!! Yes, digests! It must be becoming apparent by now
that some form of editing of many materials to cut out repetitious
and nonsense messages is increasingly necessary. This isn't necessarily
censorship. Would you expect "Time" magazine to publish every
manuscript sent to the editor? You wouldn't have the desire (or time)
to read anything if they operated in that manner. The use of digests
would mean that only ONE copy of most messages would be MAILED to
the digest moderator, and only the finished digest would be
broadcast to the entire net. There are certainly technical issues
to be worked out, but I believe that a massive improvement in quality
and a lowering of costs could be realized by such a technique being
used for even a few of the more verbose newsgroups.
I've taken up far too much space already, and I apologize in advance.
However, I've seen situations in the past closely analogous to this one,
and Usenet, Inc. is simply the wrong way to go. There are solutions
to our specific problems, but Usenet, Inc. is not one of them -- it would
only cause its own problems. I respect Usenet, and I want to see
it continue -- but that means dealing with our specific problems in
the correct manner, and Usenet, Inc. just isn't it. I hope some
of you agree with me.
--Lauren--
{decvax, ihnp4, harpo, ucbvax!lbl-csam, randvax}!vortex!lauren
P.S. As for satellite circuits and such... I do work in this area, and
I don't believe that Usenet generates the "correct" form of
traffic to be cost effective for the leasing of satellite
channels. Intrastate telephone costs in many cases are similar
to long-haul interstate costs at various hours, and my calculations
in the past for other clients have convinced me that satellite
channels are only useful for extremely high volume traffic that
is heavily centralized. There are a couple of hops in Usenet
that might have enough traffic to almost be suitable, but the
costs would be similar if not higher in most cases. There are
alternatives to satellite channels, of course, some of which
might be more cost effective than what we're using now. I can
elaborate on this topic later if anyone wishes.
--LW--
bstempleton@watmath.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (07/26/83)
Thanks Lauren and Larry for comments. Let's consider. Lauren says the net is not broken, so don't fix it. At the end of the message, he lists problems (BTW for example) and alternate solutions to usenet inc. I think you must agree, Lauren that the question of a broken (or breaking) net is not that clear cut. I do admit the bureaucrat problem could be big. To solve that, i would suggest articles for USENET inc that forbid what we do not want. Sort of a constitution or Bill of Rights. Anyway, I maintain this would not be a big problem. In the beginning, USENET inc could operate exactly as things do now, just as another node that centralizes database connection. It would talk only to rich sites that could afford it and those rich sites who are paying for the net now could continue to do this by feeding to others. Things would only change if people wanted them too, ie. paid for them. This is the same democracy you have both spoken of. (The current system where anybody can spend the money of the rich companies which support usenet regardless of their financial status is nothing but socialism, of course, which I never thought was a common philosophy on the net. Not that socialism is necessarily invalid for a net, mind you, but I am not a socialist myself) I am not sure on the legal questions. Surely the precedents in forwarding and transport companies are clear. Does Telco take legal liability for what is said on the phone? Does Telenet or Tymnet? Does Federal Express? No, only editors could take this burden, and in this case that's fine because they will be sure to not allow libel or slander to be posted, as is their duty under the laws of our society. Will the rich sites do all the posting? This is the socialism question again. My solution is the same as Lauren's, namely moderators and digests. Except usenet inc provides a very easy framework in which to put such moderators. This includes a central site for them to be on, and somebody to pay for insurance against any legal problems. The idea is that everybody takes collect (just like today) what the moderators sends, because they trust it (just like when they pay for a magazine) and know they will not see 30 expansions of BTW. If a site elects to act just like today (this is just as much democracy as anything else) they can accept all things collect. If somebody sends something that the moderator refuses, then I see nothing wrong with forcing them to pay to send it. As long as the moderators are subject to censure for mistakes, we will be in the clear. Thus the usenet inc bill of rights would allow any user to insist the moderator post their article with disclaimer and allow the community at large to support or censure the moderator. If they support the moderator, the poster pays, if they censure, the community pays and considers firing the moderator. The biggest problem with the whole thing is the "Usenet as a separate item" problem. Currently a lot of usenet is supported by hiding the costs in large corporate phone bills, duping the people who are paying the money. This is just plain dishonest, but if you approve of it, that is your right. At this site, we do pay the usenet bill as a separate item, and any cost reduction due to economy of scale would probably be welcome. -- Brad Templeton - Waterloo, Ont. (519) 886-7304
smk@linus.UUCP (Steven M. Kramer) (07/30/83)
As a site that now handles a large load of UUCP/USENET traffic, we
don't want a Usenet, Inc. If there were one, I would lobby to make
a USENET II modeled after this one. Our costs are hidden this way.
To actually pay would mean I would have to re-evaluate the benefits
of USENET, ... and probably would not think it's worth it. (I'd then
have to justify the expenditure if I wanted to sign up and do other
happy horses--t.)
As we decided before, let's keep it this way.
--
--steve kramer
{allegra,genrad,ihnp4,utzoo,philabs,uw-beaver}!linus!smk (UUCP)
linus!smk@mitre-bedford (ARPA)