"We don't get that newsgroup here"
Mark Brader
misc.misc reads in part:
> You probably don't realise that the originator of the cat poems CAN'T post
> to only rec.arts.poems. This group is not available in the UK - in fact like
> many of the rec groups it doesn't come into Europe at all. We could
> campaign to get it, but as the European gateway machine is pretty well
> at its maximum capacity with the groups it gets for us now, it is very
> unlikely ...
>
> So the Europeans either don't post poetry, or send it to the next best group
No. So the Europeans either don't post poetry, or start their own poetry
group (or groups) with European distribution or less, or start another
transatlantic gateway. Just as people who don't get talk.abortion should
not post articles on abortion to soc.women, and [FLAME:] people who don't
get rec.arts.startrek should not post Star Trek articles to rec.arts.sf-
lovers [flame off].
If mcvax!piet doesn't want to carry rec.arts.poems on the transatlantic
links, this decision should be respected, regrettable as it may be to some.
This may sound harsh coming from North America where most groups reach
most places, but that may not necessarily continue to be true as traffic
keeps rising (we experienced a cutback period here in Toronto a couple
of years ago, for instance; some local shadows of netwide groups were
indeed established then). If things got to where only the comp.*
groups were carried, would that give me a license to post cat poems to
comp.unix.questions, as the closest appropriate group? (No.)
Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, m...@sq.com
"The conversation never became heated, which would have been difficult
in any argument where there is a built-in cooling-down period between
any remark and its answer." -- Hal Clement, STAR LIGHT
William Linden
I understand concerns about, e.g.. Star Trek articles being crossed
wholesale to other groups. But how can you possibly claim that
something does not "belong" in misc.misc? If someone, somewhere, starts
a group for X, do messages about X instantly become taboo here, even
if his distribution comes nowhere near me? Were articles on Lake
Wobegon once permissible, then become forbidden the day rec.arts.wobegon
was created, then become lawful again when it folded? What does
"misc.misc" mean?
--
Will Linden {sun,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\
Compuserve 72737,2150 {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!wlinden
MCI Mail WLINDEN {portal,well,ihnp4,amdahl}!hoptoad/
David Wright
#A response from England to complaints about posting poems about cats in
#misc.misc reads in part:
#
#> You probably don't realise that the originator of the cat poems CAN'T post
#> to only rec.arts.poems. This group is not available in the UK - in fact like
#> many of the rec groups it doesn't come into Europe at all. ...
#> So the Europeans either don't post poetry, or send it to the next best group
#
#No. So the Europeans either don't post poetry, or start their own poetry
#group (or groups) with European distribution or less, or start another
#transatlantic gateway.
Well, transatlantic transmission is rather expensive, unless the cost
is shared across all the sites served (as mcvax's transmission costs are -
unlike most US sites we do pay a share of our backbone's costs - though I
guess not enough to pay for bigger disks :-)). So while not impossible
a second gateway is not practical.
So that leaves either posting locally (e.g. to uk.general or eunet.general,
due to the much lower traffic over here general/followup groups still exist
and work quite well), or posting in misc.misc. Doesn't really matter to me,
I don't post poems myself but I like to read them, which I'd be able to
do in those groups, or in a uk.poems if we started one. But the option
originally suggested, that European poem postings go to rec.arts.poems,
is not possible. So if people outside Europe want to see such poems,
the only sensible group is misc.misc. If not, then I guess you're right to
say "Don't post". But the poems are much more interesting to a world-wide
audience than the "Car for sale in NJ" or "Which college makes sport
compulsory" or "Did you see XXX on TV" that fill much of misc.misc.
Aren't they?
--
Regards,
David Wright STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, UK
d...@stl.stc.co.uk <or> ...uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!dww <or> PSI%234237100122::DWW
Mark Brader
> ... how can you possibly claim that
> something does not "belong" in misc.misc? If someone, somewhere, starts
> a group for X, do messages about X instantly become taboo here, even
> if his distribution comes nowhere near me? ...
I overrode his Followup-To because I think this is a very interesting
and news.miscy question. The interpretation that I have always taken
is that the spaf's official list of backbone-supported newsgroups is
what should be used to resolve such questions. I would therefore say
that misc.misc is for anything that doesn't fit under any of the
existing newsgroups in that list.
For people in deprived areas such as Europe, this may not be a fair
interpretation. Or, on the other hand, it may be fair after all.
See my earlier article with this Subject line.
What do the backbone people feel about this?
Erik E. Fair
to replace newsgroups that your site doesn't get is defeating the
purpose behind having newsgroups in the first place. Newsgroups
are topic separators, and I expect to find germane articles in each
and every newsgroup that my site receives. Thus I can tailor the
list of newsgroups that I read to reflect my interests.
If there is a topic being discussed in a newsgroup I don't get, it
is pointless to try and use misc.misc to reach the audience of
people interested in that topic, because they're all (in theory)
reading the newsgroup I don't get. It also runs contrary to the
notion that misc.misc is for discussions that have no newsgroups
(of course, our hypothetical discussion has a newsgroup; it's just
that my site isn't getting that newsgroup).
If your site isn't getting a newsgroup that you want to read, you
have two alternatives:
1. Convince the local admin that your newsgroup is worth getting.
2. Grin and bear life without it.
Note that option one includes you setting up your very own site
and getting that newsgroup or contributing some time or money to
your local system admin to offset the cost of receiving and storing
the articles in that newsgroup. Either way, it's good to recognize
that netnews is not without cost in resources of various types.
Newsgroups are the names of the discussion space. Ignore that, and
the network is doomed to death by uselessness. After all, what use
is a network in which you can't find what you're interested in (and
filter out what you're not interested in)?
Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fa...@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu
Webber
In article <22...@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, fa...@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) writes:
>In answer to Mark Brader's question, my view is that using misc.misc
>to replace newsgroups that your site doesn't get is defeating the
>purpose behind having newsgroups in the first place. Newsgroups
>are topic separators, and I expect to find germane articles in each
>If there is a topic being discussed in a newsgroup I don't get, it
>is pointless to try and use misc.misc to reach the audience of
>people interested in that topic, because they're all (in theory)
Well, a few of them are probably reading other groups as well and the
more enlightened will keep an eye on misc.misc. While posting to the
most specific group would get better results, when that isn't possible
and the situation doesn't merit going to the effort of getting a more
reasonable feed, it is difficult to see a posting to misc.misc as
being ``pointless.''
> Newsgroups are the names of the discussion space. Ignore that, and
> the network is doomed to death by uselessness. After all, what use
> is a network in which you can't find what you're interested in (and
> filter out what you're not interested in)?
Well, back when everyone carried most groups this was the case, but
that was awfully long ago. Nowadays, newsgroup names are simply ways
for various systems to restrict traffic that they handle. While it
sounds reasonable for a site to refuse to carry something like
comp.mac.binaries if they have no use for it, such a refusal is a much
more serious undermining of the validity of the name space than
someone posting a Mac binary (disguised as a cat poem) to misc.misc.
Each of these petty tyrants (both the ones who got into something they
just couldn't afford and the ones who think there is too much ``junk''
in usenet) has decided to take Usenet and twist it into something that
they like better and then impose their vision on their users and anyone
else who is foolish enough to rely on them.
The only fix I can see is to refuse to accept postings from sites that
don't carry the full set of groups (thus emphasizing the different
status) -- i.e., sites that carry the full complement of groups should
only read from other sites that do the same (regardless of who they
choose to write to). Of course, since moderated groups are handled
via mail (and hence you can post to a moderated group whether you
recieve it or not! -- and receive it whether your neighbors like it or
not when the moderators choose to distribute via mail) they would not
be covered (or coverable) by such considerations.
----- BOB (web...@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)
Get the full usenet/altnet -- don't settle for cheap substitutes.
Richard A. O'Keefe
> The only fix I can see is to refuse to accept postings from sites that
> don't carry the full set of groups (thus emphasizing the different
Suppose we have (leaf)-->(link)-->(backbone) and (link) decides without
asking (leaf) not to carry some newsgroup, (leaf) isn't to be allowed to
post anything to any newsgroup? Save us from our "friends".
Webber
Leaf can post anything that link is willing to carry. It is just that
``backbone'' shouldn't relay it any further since it was posted into
an eratz alternate group system that is trying to use the same name
space as the regular usenet group system. E.g., their misc.misc is a
different group because they don't have a rec.arts.poems. If leaf
want's to post into the ``real usenet'' then all it has to do is get a
feed (or convince link that it is causing more trouble than it is
saving).
----- BOB (web...@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)
Roemer Lievaart
fa...@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) typed:
+---------------------------------------
| In answer to Mark Brader's question, my view is that using misc.misc
| to replace newsgroups that your site doesn't get is defeating the
| purpose behind having newsgroups in the first place.
+---------------------------------------
Sh*********sh.
Sorry, Erik, nothing personal to you, but I think this is getting
ridiculous. Someone sent a few poems to misc.misc (which I happen
to like very very much, like many others) - as happened before
and misc.misc never turned into a poem-group - and look what came
out of it. A discussion that involves *much more* articles than
there were poems. Look, people LIKED them, other people have an 'n'
button. *As long it doesn't get out of hand*, nothing is the matter, eh?
But there is with this discussion, why is this discussion in misc.misc?
There are many other newsgroups were it can and should belong, so
why following up to misc.misc? Misc.misc is only for discussions that
don't belong anywhere else, so?!?(-:!?!
Oh boy, I myself am contributing to this senseless discussion.
I'm ashamed of me.
Roemer "Catfan" B. Lievaart.
----
Disclaimer: the VU is ashamed of me. I guess I'm lucky still having my login.
David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack
Go look in the installation documents
Since back in the dark old days of v2.10 it has suggested establishing
L type links with a nearby backbone ... SOLEY to make sure that your
local articles were propogated.
Bob. Eh? "refuse to accept ..." eh? maybe I'm missing some
important context here but I don't see the purpose to your suggestion.
--
<---- David Herron -- The E-Mail guy <da...@ms.uky.edu>
<---- or: {rutgers,uunet,cbosgd}!ukma!david, da...@UKMA.BITNET
<----
<---- Winter health warning: Remember, don't eat the yellow snow!
Ron Heiby
> Suppose we have (leaf)-->(link)-->(backbone) and (link) decides without
> asking (leaf) not to carry some newsgroup, (leaf) isn't to be allowed to
> post anything to any newsgroup? Save us from our "friends".
There's a fairly simple fix for this problem. (leaf) talks to the admin
over at (backbone) and tells him/her that the bum who administers (link)
is dropping newsgroups. (leaf) and (backbone) then arrange things so
that instead of having:
(leaf)-->(link)-->(backbone)
we have:
(link)<->(leaf)<->(backbone)
Of course, (leaf) is no longer a *leaf* and will probably be expected
to pass along at least the newsgroups that (link) cut to the other
sites that (link) feeds that want those newsgroups. (leaf) may not be
willing or able to do this. Sorry, but that's just too bad.
--
Ron Heiby, he...@mcdchg.UUCP Moderator: comp.newprod & comp.unix
"Intel architectures build character."
Richard A. O'Keefe
> Richard A. O'Keefe (o...@quintus.UUCP) writes:
> > Suppose we have (leaf)-->(link)-->(backbone) and (link) decides without
> > asking (leaf) not to carry some newsgroup, (leaf) isn't to be allowed to
> > post anything to any newsgroup? Save us from our "friends".
>
> There's a fairly simple fix for this problem.
I see, it doesn't matter how useful my postings might be, if the guy
upstream of me can't afford another disc drive, and I'm not rich enough
to route everything through my machine, you want to muzzle me. Now
*that* is censorship. Applying this rule would shut every University in
Europe off the net, to start with, and most of the American ones.
B Tompsett
>If your site isn't getting a newsgroup that you want to read, [...]
>
> 1. Convince the local admin that your newsgroup is worth getting.
Oh! if it were that easy. That is not how it works this side of the pond.
--
> Brian Tompsett. Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh,
> JCMB, The King's Buildings, Mayfield Road, EDINBURGH, EH9 3JZ, Scotland, U.K.
> Telephone: +44 31 667 1081 x2711.
> JANET: b...@uk.ac.ed.ecsvax ARPA: bct%ed.e...@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk
> USENET: b...@ecsvax.ed.ac.uk UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!ed.ecsvax!bct
> BITNET: ukacrl.earn!ed.ecsvax!bct or bct%ed.e...@uk.ac
Frozen Wombat
>upstream of me can't afford another disc drive, and I'm not rich enough
>to route everything through my machine, you want to muzzle me. Now
>*that* is censorship. Applying this rule would shut every University in
>Europe off the net, to start with, and most of the American ones.
No, that's not censorship. That's the reality of a system where those
who make the resources available are under no obligation to continue to
do so, except the case of certain semi-commercial service providers.
It is a frequent misconception of Usenet users that free access to the
entire resources of the net is a "right"; it is in reality nothing of the kind.
To rephrase this: you are entitled to whatever soapbox you can pay for;
and I might let you use my soapbox for free. But if you do (use my soapbox
for free), I reserve the right to pass traffic from you at my discretion.
--
Rich Kulawiec, r...@s.cc.purdue.edu, s.cc.purdue.edu!rsk
PUCC Unix Staff
Webber
> In article <5...@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> o...@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
> >In article <6...@brandx.rutgers.edu>, web...@brandx.rutgers.edu (Webber) writes:
> >> The only fix I can see is to refuse to accept postings from sites that
> >> don't carry the full set of groups (thus emphasizing the different
> Bob. Eh? "refuse to accept ..." eh? maybe I'm missing some
> important context here but I don't see the purpose to your suggestion.
My suggestion solves the problem of people posting to a group because it
is the best fit of the groups they have available to them instead of being
the global best fit in terms of the ``standard'' group set.
The problem takes on many interesting aspects now that ``alternate''
news hierarchies are being encouraged. I am maintaining that there
should be two levels of joining a news hierarchy. One level is
``browse'' where one news hierarchy accepts another on a read (and
local discuss) basis and the other is ``conversation'' where two news
hierarchies merge. When two news hiearchies merge, they in essence
form a new news hierarchy that is the union of the two old ones. They
only exist in conversation mode with other sites in the ``merger.'' A
site would distribute anything it can find takers for but only accept
from sites that carry a superset of the groups that it carries.
This allows everyone to maintain the integrity of their local namespace.
Alternatively, one could allow that there is no such thing as a improperly
posted news message and that the purpose of newsgroups is not to tell
the reader what they can expect to find, but rather to tell the poster
something about the audience they can expect to be listening. So, if you want
to talk with unix wizards about the in and outs of raising guppies, then
there is nothing wrong with posting a message about raising guppies to
unix-wizards. Thus, news groups take on more the feeling of clubs than
of library categories. Within the traffic for each news club, other mechanisms
could be used to distinquish topics under the assumption that people
who join the club have access to the whole club.
--------- BOB (web...@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)
the virtually invulnerable gypsyroach
<FLAME ON>
What is WITH you people?!? Have you all been completely spoiled by having
newsgroups?!? If someone wants to post something, and THEY have no news-
group for it, why shouldn't they post it to what is the only relevant news-
group for them?!? READ THE SUBJECT LINE, AND IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ
ABOUT IT THEN FOR CHRISSAKES SKIP THE ARTICLE INSTEAD OF GENERATING A LOT
OF ARTICLES I DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT HOW YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT
ANYTHING THAT ISN'T "MISC"!!! <now I expect to be flamed by atheists who
don't think my religious reference is appropriate and Christians who object
to my using profanity. FINE. Not only am I a net.amazon, I am a
net.masochist. I LIKE being flamed!> USE THE POWER OF YOUR INDEX FINGER!
<FLAME OFF>
(personally, I don't see why we can't have poems about cats in misc.misc.,
since I don't see how you can get much more misc. than cats. So there.)
****************************************************************
* Some just sat there; others exploded like little bombs. *
* (If you can identify the source of this, *
* PLEASE email and tell me!) *
* gypsy @ uunet!rlgvax!dolqci!c3pe *
****************************************************************
Roemer Lievaart
+---------------------------------------
| No, that is economics.
+---------------------------------------
But what is it not to have someone post an article on misc.misc on
a subject of which he doesn't receive the appropiate newsgroup?
{I don't care whether that's correct english.}
Greg Woods
>he...@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby) typed (on the subject of censorship):
>+---------------------------------------
>| No, that is economics.
>+---------------------------------------
>
>But what is it not to have someone post an article on misc.misc on
>a subject of which he doesn't receive the appropiate newsgroup?
It's called common courtesy and respect for the wishes of his site
and/or intervening sites. If his site or his feed site has chosen not
to get a certain newsgroup, there is probably a good reason for it (and
even if there isn't, so what? They still made the choice not to get that
newsgroup). At any rate, that choice should be respected. It has nothing
to do with censorship; it's common courtesy.
A lot of people seem to keep forgetting: access to USENET is not a right,
it is a privilege. Your site (and the site(s) that feed it) have chosen to
provide you with that privilege (or at least part of it). They have done
you a favor by doing so. They don't OWE you USENET access. The very LEAST you
can do is cooperate with any access limitations they care to impose. As long
as EVERYONE at your site operates under the same limits, it isn't censorship.
--Greg
Webber
> ....
> It's called common courtesy and respect for the wishes of his site
>and/or intervening sites. If his site or his feed site has chosen not
>to get a certain newsgroup, there is probably a good reason for it (and
What makes you think that a site manager has training in how best to
restrict the information that users have access to?
>even if there isn't, so what? They still made the choice not to get that
Hmmm, it is going to be difficult to reason with someone who doesn't see
a need for ``good reason.''
>newsgroup). At any rate, that choice should be respected. It has nothing
>to do with censorship;
If the govenor of Colorado decides that government roads should not be
used to transport material on water skiing in Florida and stations guards
on the state roads to prevent anyone from carrying such tourist
propaganda into Colorado, would it be censorship?
>it's common courtesy. ...
Or, to put it another way: do you really want to be on a net where
communication is held hostage by sites run by people with opinions
like these?
It is typical of some sites that they would rather accuse other's
users of being unmannered than to restrict their net access to
only those sites that carry the same net classifications that they do.
At the very least, it would only be common courtesy to send Greg a
copy of any message you intended to post to net news to make sure
he didn't think it was inappropriate usage of his site to forward it.
--- BOB (web...@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)
Many people resist a change in manners, no matter how useful it
may be. ---- Judith Martin's Common Courtesy (Atheneum, 1985)
Roemer Lievaart
+---------------------------------------
| In article <9...@tjalk.cs.vu.nl> rbl...@cs.vu.nl (that's me folks!) writes:
| >he...@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby) typed (on the subject of censorship):
| >+---------------------------------------
| >| No, that is economics.
| >+---------------------------------------
| >
| >But what is it not to have someone post an article on misc.misc on
| >a subject of which he doesn't receive the appropiate newsgroup?
|
| It's called common courtesy and respect for the wishes of his site
| and/or intervening sites. If his site or his feed site has chosen not
So, if you do have access to the net, but not to good.wine, because of
*economical* reasons (as was pointed out by Ron Heiby), you are
respecting the wishes of your site and/or intervening sites by strictly
shutting up about wine? It's as logical to me as a cow is to a PDP-11, on
a bicycle, though. With bananas, but peeled. Purple striped.
Or do you think your site really wants you to shut up about wine,
because they don't have enough money??
You're confusing the *reason* of a policy with a policy.
Roemer.
[ the example of wine is, ofcourse, ridiculous, so be smart and don't flame
on THAT! Flame on anything else... ]
Ron Heiby
> If the govenor of Colorado decides that government roads should not be
> used to transport material on water skiing in Florida and stations guards
> on the state roads to prevent anyone from carrying such tourist
> propaganda into Colorado, would it be censorship?
Probably, but if you decide that *YOUR DRIVEWAY* should not be used to
transport some material and you hire a security guard to prevent people from
trespassing on your property, then you are simply asserting your property
rights. I believe this is a more apt analogy. My boss pays my phone bills.
If he says to cut down on the traffic, I'll do so. I hope I don't have to
cut newsgroups to do it, but don't doubt for a minute that I'll respect
my company's right to control their property.
d...@stl.uucp
#Richard A. O'Keefe (o...@quintus.UUCP) writes:
#> Suppose we have (leaf)-->(link)-->(backbone) and (link) decides without
#> asking (leaf) not to carry some newsgroup, (leaf) isn't to be allowed to
#> post anything to any newsgroup? Save us from our "friends".
#
#There's a fairly simple fix for this problem. (leaf) talks to the admin
#over at (backbone) and tells him/her that the bum who administers (link)
#is dropping newsgroups. ...
But what about when it IS the backbone that isn't passing the newsgroup?
This discussion started because of postings of poems in misc.misc from the UK.
The European gateway (mcvax) has to restrict groups coming in because of high
trans-atlantic transmission costs. Thus rec.poems does not exist in Europe.
Nothing stops people here posting poems - although there is no .poems. group
in Europe, our national and continental general groups (uk.general/uk.followup
and eunet.general/eunet.followup) run at a level where a few poems would be
quite acceptable. But if only posted there, US (& can, oz, etc) readers
would not see them. So the question is, do you (collective) want to see
such postings from Europe or not? If so, then misc.misc probably IS the
most appropriate group we share in common. If not, then I hope they'll still
be posted within Europe.
If the volume of poems was very high, and each set off lots of counter-
arguments - eg if someone were to post on politics or religion or the
relationship between Marxism and Atheism to misc.misc that would be
another matter of course - such controversial articles would always go to
the talk.religion/politics groups, wouldn't they, especially when posted
in the USA where such groups have wide coverage (:-)).
Webber
> ...
> But what about when it IS the backbone that isn't passing the newsgroup?
> This discussion started because of postings of poems in misc.misc from the UK.
> The European gateway (mcvax) has to restrict groups coming in because of high
> trans-atlantic transmission costs. Thus rec.poems does not exist in Europe.
> would not see them. So the question is, do you (collective) want to see
> such postings from Europe or not? If so, then misc.misc probably IS the
> most appropriate group we share in common.
Are you claiming:
a) that posting a poem from Europe to NA is cheaper than posting a poem
from NA to Europe
or
b) that the wishes of mcvax should simply be bypassed by posting
into misc.misc. perhaps we should all cross post everything to
misc.misc. actually, news.misc would probably be a better
place to cross post miscellaneous news (although apollo sources
belong in news.groups).
------- BOB (web...@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)
The Prime Minister
> But what about when it IS the backbone that isn't passing the newsgroup?
> This discussion started because of postings of poems in misc.misc from the UK.
> The European gateway (mcvax) has to restrict groups coming in because of high
> trans-atlantic transmission costs. Thus rec.poems does not exist in Europe.
Well, you could always try to set up an alternate feed. I know there are
a couple groups I read where I'd like to see some UK input (rec.arts.drwho
comes to mind! :-). I'll make this deal with you... If you want rec.poems
or whatever, I'll let you poll one of my machines which has it, so long
as you also take rec.arts.drwho to England....
Kris Kugel
> restrict the information that users have access to?
HE'S RESPONSABLE FOR THE SYSTEM. This includes disk usage and phone costs.
> If the govenor of Colorado decides that government roads should not be
> used to transport material on water skiing in Florida and stations guards
> on the state roads to prevent anyone from carrying such tourist
> propaganda into Colorado, would it be censorship?
>
> --- BOB (web...@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)
Ok, but make the example more like the real situation! It's more
like a neighbor asking me to maintain several magazine subscriptions
for magazines which *I* have no interest in just so he can borrow them
from me after I get them.
We don't always get all news groups that we are interested in, and
have reliability problems with some of the ones we do get.
the internal gateway machine people don't have the extra hours of time
necessary to fix all our problems. A solution would be for
us to develop our own, independent connections. The only problem with
doing this for random, independent newsgroups in general is the difficulty
of keeping track of which machines carry which newsgroups.
We don't pay anybody money specificly for usenet yet; when we do,
THEN I'll complain if we have problems.
Kris A. Kugel
Storage Tek: ...{ uunet!nbires, hao, ihnp4 }!stcvax!stc-auts!kak
High Country Software: ...{hao, wldrdg, uunet!nbires}!hicntry!kak
"It is better to light one small cannibal than to torch the duchess"
Roemer Lievaart
+---------------------------------------
| In article <6...@acer.stl.stc.co.uk>, d...@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) writes:
| > ...
| > But what about when it IS the backbone that isn't passing the newsgroup?
| > This discussion started because of postings of poems in misc.misc from the
| > UK.
| > such postings from Europe or not? If so, then misc.misc probably IS the
| > most appropriate group we share in common.
|
| Are you claiming:
| a) that posting a poem from Europe to NA is cheaper than posting a poem
| from NA to Europe
| or
| b) that the wishes of mcvax should simply be bypassed by posting
| into misc.misc. perhaps we should all cross post everything to
| misc.misc. actually, news.misc would probably be a better
| place to cross post miscellaneous news (although apollo sources
| belong in news.groups).
|
| ------- BOB (web...@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)
No. I'm really sorry to say this, but what you typed is rubbish.
What was asked, is not: "shall we make misc.misc into a poems-group"
but "do you really mind if we in europe SOMETIMES post a poem onto
misc.misc."
Just face it: lots of americans liked the poems,
and there are probably more people skipping this discussion or the
discussion on N-Ireland than people who skipped the poems.
And these discussions cost the net
a lot more than those few poems. Just because
someone said "I hate poems" and noone yet said: "I hate the N-Ireland-
discussion" suddenly it is SO bad to post a poem to misc.misc!!!
Well, let ME tell you something. I HATED the sports-discussion that was
on misc.misc a while ago. Now that was a lot of articles! My 'N'-button
is lame, by now...
So now anyone who posts anything about sport is damned for ever.
C'mon people... let's face it, it's just a prejudice against poems
that is much more important than all the "reasonable" arguments
brought up yet.
And I don't think mcvax wants no poems; I just think it is trying
to save money. Which is quite something different.
But let's keep happy anyway...
Roemer.
--
Put in your :-) wherever you feel the need.
Robert C. White Jr.
A lot of stuff about, why should a site be "allowed" to decide
what it carries. [and moaning about censorship]
This issue is very simple to settle:
DISCLAIMER: The following is an EXAMPLE only, and does not represent
my or my employers viewpoint an any way AT ALL.
If I said:
"Webber, I require you to load the entire body of natzi propaganda
into your hard disk. I require you to do it now. You may optionally
include any decenting opinions you desire. You must keep it there until
I say otherwise"
You would [most likely] tell me to blow off. "I" don't have
_ANY_ "right" to you, your machine, your property, or your resources.
In this instance your "right" to privacy, property, and the like
enjoy a priority to my "right" to have my views heard in a public
forum.
In the common law of the United States, the UK, and all
"western" nations [and most likely the whole world] all "rights"
are ranked by priorities. A good, if dumb, obvious example would
be:
I have a "right" to own and discharge fire-arms.
You have a "right" NOT to be gunned down in the streets.
Guess which "right" generally holds greatest priority??? ;-)
Rob.
S.P.Holmes
Sender:
Followup-To:
In article <1...@falkor.UUCP> he...@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby) writes:
>David Wright (d...@stl.stc.co.uk) writes:
>> But what about when it IS the backbone that isn't passing the newsgroup?
>> This discussion started because of postings of poems in misc.misc from the UK.
Yes remember this discussion, well perhaps I can give a perspective
from this side of the lake which might explain why some european
postings appear in strange newsgroups.
I started work, i typed 'rn' and up popped a list of newsgroups.
that - to me is my world perspective on the net -.
I see some subset of the total groups, but don't know what is outside that
subset.
Therefore when I post my soon to be written masterpiece on liontaming,
I post to misc.misc since we don't get, and I don't even know if there is
rec.sports.liontaming (and how can I be sure that there's a rec.arts.dangerous
to crosspost to).
So this guy writes some poems, and puts them in the only place where they
can't cause offence (as far as he can see). He's certainally not crossed
any of the major rules in the newusers announcement (No heavy crossposting,
no heavy quoting etc.
It really depends upon your perception of the world. Intelligent people
will take the most appropriate means availible to them.
Hannibal crossed the alps using elephants, helicopter gunships would've
been better; carthage didn't hae helicopter gunships.
Mr Clark from Bath posts his poems to misc.misc, rec.poems would be
better; the english don't have rec.poems.
NB mcvax has never told us that peoms are contrabrand info they appear willing
to deliver.
AS a counter example, we get a lot of for sale notices which have
leaked across the atlantic. U.S.A. is a big place, and I assume that
distribution loses a lot of its meaning when most news is from the one nation
anyway.
Hope this can promote some international understanding.
--
Steve Holmes | Noel Coward : "Would you object if I smoked"
Room 109a |
E-mail sph | Sarah Bernhardt : "I wouldn't care if you burned"
Phone ext 7681 or 3682 |
Steve C. Simmons
newsgroups that don't come into our site. That's because management has
decided that they don't want them, and post it as a policy. I presume
that most commercial sites with the same limitations have them for the
same reasons -- your management (for whatever reason) said no.
So -- don't have a newsgroup you want? Lobby your management. Posting
to inappropriate newsgroups will just p*ss people off in netland and will
no doubt get your boss onto your tail.
Chris R. Lewis
|In article <1...@falkor.UUCP> he...@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby) writes:
|>David Wright (d...@stl.stc.co.uk) writes:
|>> But what about when it IS the backbone that isn't passing the newsgroup?
|>> This discussion started because of postings of poems in misc.misc from the UK.
|
|Yes remember this discussion, well perhaps I can give a perspective
|from this side of the lake which might explain why some european
|postings appear in strange newsgroups.
|
|I post to misc.misc since we don't get, and I don't even know if there is
|rec.sports.liontaming (and how can I be sure that there's a rec.arts.dangerous
|to crosspost to).
|
|So this guy writes some poems, and puts them in the only place where they
|can't cause offence (as far as he can see). He's certainally not crossed
|any of the major rules in the newusers announcement (No heavy crossposting,
|no heavy quoting etc.
People may be getting a little confused about the existence of a newsgroup
versus its propagation.
One of the things I've been wondering about for a long time over this
discussion, is why Europe doesn't have the same (with some local variations)
list of newsgroups as in North America? The only caveat being that there
is no *transport* between Europe and North America. Even if there might be
relatively little traffic in some of the groups not currently in place.
Thus, over there, you would have a place to post your liontaming masterpiece,
or the gentleman from Bath would have rec.poems to post to. But, neither of
them would be seen over 'ere. And vice-versa for North American posters.
Connecting the two would be a simple matter of turning on a "sys" entry
somewhere on the normal cross-Atlantic feed, OR, setting up some other
partial feed somewhere. Politically, I would think that it would require
someone willing to pay the trans-Atlantic transport cost, *plus* some
agreement (a vote) on both sides of the pond to allow the additional
traffic over intra-continental links.
Thus, if the cost of transmitting stuff to Europe abruptly dropped, or
everybody got very interested in international poetry, there would be
very little difficulty in merging the two geographically-isolated,
but isomorphous networks. Further, it doesn't particularly require
an identical newsgroup hierarchy, some could be coalesced, and some
could simply be aliased.
It appears that Australia has some sort of equivalent setup to what I
suggest.
This of course is probably a silly suggestion if the reason for Europe's
lack of rec.poems is intra-Europe load over and above just trans-atlantic
expenses.
--
Chris Lewis, Spectrix Microsystems Inc,
UUCP: {uunet!mnetor, utcsri!utzoo, lsuc, yunexus}!spectrix!clewis
Phone: (416)-474-1955