CJS@CANCTR.MC.DUKE.EDU (05/03/91)
Fellow bboard readers- I have been reading the recent outpouring of mail regarding the establishment of USENET systems for everyone and the abolishing of e-mail access to the genbank bulletin boards..... I wrote to my system manager and mentioned that there was a problem with several of my bboard subscriptions and inquired about switching to a USENET system.....in response he asked for details which I am unable to provide so I thought I would ask for your assistance in providing the following information regarding USENET systems vs. e-mail access: 1. What is the nature of the problem that individual USENET systems would solve (presumably something about the e-mail system causes the problem)? 2. Is USENET publicly available and where (any addl details would be useful)? 3. What are the purported advantages of a USENET system as opposed to e-mail access (I think its obvious that I don't really know what USENET is...so any information along those lines would also be informative)? And any other information would be greatly appreciated.....I gather from the discussions going on, that I am not the only one with these questions, so any relevant or addl information that could be provided would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanx- Caryl Schwartzbach cjs@canctr.mc.duke.edu
kristoff@genbank.bio.net (David Kristofferson) (05/03/91)
> > Fellow bboard readers- > I have been reading the recent outpouring of mail regarding the > establishment of USENET systems for everyone and the abolishing of e-mail > access to the genbank bulletin boards..... The great majority of the mail that I have received so far is firmly against any early abolition of e-mail, and, as I mentioned earlier on BIONEWS/bionet.general, no such change is planned for the near term. > I wrote to my system manager and mentioned that there was a problem > with several of my bboard subscriptions and inquired about switching to a > USENET system.....in response he asked for details which I am unable to > provide so I thought I would ask for your assistance in providing the following > information regarding USENET systems vs. e-mail access: I applaud your initiative and will attempt to help out below. > 1. What is the nature of the problem that individual USENET systems > would solve (presumably something about the e-mail system causes > the problem)? As long as we have e-mail distribution and unmoderated newsgroups the chance will remain that someone will misconfigure something somewhere on the network and create a mailing loop. If the loop occurs over a high speed network (which is about the only reason that I've seen to be thankful here for the slowness of BITNET - this latest round took about **10 hours** per revolution - zzzzzzzz) the prospect remains open that all of your mail boxes could start filling up with multiple copies of the same message on essentially a "real-time" scale. As long as people are comfortable with this prospect and won't get bent tremendously out of shape if it ever happens {right ... (-8 I've got a bridge to sell you too!} then we have no problem continuing to provide you with this kind of service. The only way such a loop would be stopped would be if one of our alert BIOSCI managers detected it and changed the distribution list at our nodes to break the loop. Having all of the mailing lists at one site means that the loop could be stopped much more efficiently than if one needs to coordinate actions between different people in different time zones. USENET software automatically monitors which messages have been received and dramatically reduces the chance of such problems occurring. If we did not have BIOSCI mailing lists running in parallel with the bionet USENET lists we wouldn't have these occasional disruptions. > 2. Is USENET publicly available and where (any addl details would be > useful)? genbank.bio.net can provide a free source of USENET news or can recommend a more local USENET news source to almost anyone who requests it. Please send mail to biosci@genbank.bio.net on the Internet for further details. There is public domain software available for reading and posting USENET news. I have a collection of several messages on this topic that I will be happy to make available to anyone who requests it (the file is a bit long to copy to everyone on the net). > 3. What are the purported advantages of a USENET system as opposed to > e-mail access (I think its obvious that I don't really know what > USENET is...so any information along those lines would also be > informative)? I think I answered part of this above, but let me add that each site need get only *one* copy of a message which is commonly accessible instead of sending copies to several mailboxes on the system. The USENET software can also be configured to either delete old messages after a particular time or save them. Thus, for example, if you wish to save the table of contents postings in bionet.journal.contents (BIO-JOURNALS) you can turn off the expiration date on that individual newsgroup. This gives everyone a means of maintaining their own archives of past messages at their own site instead of having to figure out how to access old archives on a LISTSERV somewhere else. Also there are going on 900 different USENET newsgroups available on scientific, computing, cultural, recreational, political, etc. issues. USENET access provides you with a vast resource of information and assistance from other people on the network. I realize that if you receive all of these newsgroups that this will use up space on your computer's disk. Note once again that each site can determine what they want to receive and how long they want to store it. You could get only the BIOSCI/bionet groups and expire them on a daily basis which would make your investment in disk space trivial. > And any other information would be greatly appreciated.....I gather from the > discussions going on, that I am not the only one with these questions, so > any relevant or addl information that could be provided would be greatly > appreciated!!! I would be willing to bet that people in your campus computer science departments are already familiar with USENET and could also be of assistance in setting you up. If your campus gets USENET but does not get the bionet groups under USENET, once again you can contact biosci@genbank.bio.net for assistance. I am also willing to bet that there are books in your campus library about USENET or UNIX communications. NOTE HOWEVER that USENET software is also available in the public domain for VAX/VMS systems so this is not an excuse not to get it. I hope this is sufficient, but if not, we are at your service. Sincerely, Dave Kristofferson GenBank Manager kristoff@genbank.bio.net