Fear and Loathing on the Clouds
robert thau
--- Ralph Waldo Emerson
It seems that Gene Spafford has recently taken to reorganizing USENET
to suit his tastes. At first, he simply deleted a number of small,
inoffensive newsgroups which had practically no traffic anyway. Nobody
particularly cared. (This has been defended as follows: "even small
(local) volume adds up to a large amount net-wide." But what does small
global volume (1-2 messages per week) add up to?)
Recently, however, Spafford has taken it upon himself to delete two
thriving, busy newsgroups --- net.internat and net.bizarre. The case
of net.internat is especially distressing, as this newsgroup's
signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore undreamt of on USENET.
On top of the fact that two busy newsgroups are going away, the fundamental
character of the net is being changed, I think, for the worse.
Spaf may not have created the rules he cites, but his *centralized* enforcement
of them, with a literal-mindedness rarely seen outside of fourth-grade
classrooms and the IRS, is something entirely new. Spaf's oft-repeated
hallucination that the New Order already came about three years ago,
and that he is simply "continuing to maintain" it (a direct quote),
by the power vested in him by nobody in particular, is simply wrong.
I was here too.
To deal directly with some of Spaf's more obnoxious claims: the deletion of
net.bizarre does *not* represent "traditional USENET anarchy at its finest,"
nor even at its lowest. I admit that net.bizarre consists, at this point,
entirely of trash. What I object to is its unilateral deletion by a
cabal of topologically well-placed superusers. A decision not to carry the
newsgroup at any individual site might be marginally "anarchic," if it were
not propagated, but a gaggle of rmgroup messages hit absolutely everybody.
In any case, if the decision were truly a local one, there would have
been no need to inform the network as a whole, at length, in net.announce.
Also, while the net.announce posting on the subject contained a number of
helpful hints on setting up an alternate backbone and so forth, Spaf's real
feelings on the matter seem to be summed up by the first paragraph,
which says in full, without qualification, "Net.bizarre is going to go away."
Postings of this sort, no matter what the content, are symptomatic of
somebody trying to take control.
More peculiar is Spafford's contention that established procedures were not
followed in the creation of net.bizarre. The initial create messages
were indeed wildcats, but subsequently there *was* a discussion on
net.news.group, which *did* result in a consensus. What's the gripe?
Equally peculiar is Spafford's claim that net.internat was started as
a wildcat newsgroup. As postings on net.internat itself have made clear,
the group was mandated at an EUUG meeting.
Its cancellation is even more peculiar. On the basis of Spaf's own
postings, this group seems to be the summum bonum: a technical group
(easy to justify to management) with a relatively small, but nontrivial
volume, in which over 50% of the postings have something new and interesting
to say. Compare that to net.unix. (Or has it improved since I unsubscribed?)
The excuse given several times is that it was not established in accord
with existing procedures, and thus must be cancelled along with net.bizarre
in order that "enforcement" be "consistent." Emerson aside, this argument
doesn't carry much weight, since net.bizarre *was* (eventually) created
in accord with the existing procedures.
However, we only truly arrive in tripped-out looking-glass electric kool
aid wonderland when we examine Spafford's ideas on how a newsgroup *should*
come into being. To keep this missive from getting completely
disjointed, I'll prefix my discussion of spaf's comments with a few comments
of my own.
USENET has a problem: garbage. I don't mean net.flame, or net.bizarre,
or any of those monstrosities one can get away from by a simple 'ug'.
I mean naive, silly, or simply incorrect postings everyplace they could
possibly show up. (So I don't get hit, Mea Culpa. Once.) This kind of trash
makes many of the technical groups simply unreadable (at least for me).
(Yes, I know about the kill-list feature of 'rn'. No, I haven't tried it.
No, I don't think it would help. New garbage shows up more quickly than the
old garbage goes away). One possible solution is simply yoking in the idiots,
e.g. with moderated groups. Ignoring the fact that moderated groups so far
seem half-successful at best, moderation implies central control, the evils
of which are by now apparent.
What's left? The best one can do is try to provide a haven for those
interesting discussions which do arise from time to time. To this end
newsgroups are created among users. If the net is going
to remain worthwhile as more people sign on, newsgroup
creation has got to get more flexible, not more rigid.
On to Spafford. Quoting directly:
> Proposals have been made recently for groups like "net.personals",
> "net.os" and "net.docs". Although some people think these are good
> ideas in some way or another, there has yet to be any *demonstrated
> volume* of postings on these topics in any newsgroup. Thus, there is
> no real need for separate newsgroups on those topics. (There are other
> objections to "net.personals" and "net.docs", but that should be
> enough.)
In other words, a new newsgroup can only be created to siphon off a
flood of drivel which is inundating an existing newsgroup, to give it
a nice, warm, isolated home where it can flourish in peace. This requirement
seems particularly odd when stated by someone whose stated concern is the
a minimization of total net volume, and who objects to new newsgroups
on the basis that they might (heaven forbid!) provide a forum for articles
that might not get otherwise posted. If net.bizarre proves anything at all,
it is that the last thing we need is another newsgroup with a *demonstrated
volume* of postings!
At another point, Spafford notes that:
> Creating a newsgroup just because
> the topic is interesting is *NOT* something we have had as part of this
> procedure [for creating new groups].
In so far as this sentence even makes sense (which it doesn't), it says
that small newsgroups sustaining interesting discussions are absolutely
out of the question. JUST WHAT THE HELL IS THIS NETWORK FOR, ANYWAY???
So why not make it a mailing list? As has been pointed out in this
forum repeatedly, it is often the case that far more people want to read
a newsgroup than to write it. It's also worth pointing out that good
postings require thought, and thought takes time, so in a newsgroup
containing thoughtful discussion, the volume will inevitably be relatively
low. (Relative to sinkholes like net.bizarre, net.flame, and net.unix,
that is). I believe the actual volumes of the various groups on the net
do bear me out on this point.
Another Spafford objection to creation of new newsgroups which seems partially
reasonable at first blush is that locally written software is breaking
because it's running out of space. Well, I've written my own software.
It runs (more or less) on a PDP-11. Adjusting it for more groups, should
that become necessary (it hasn't) is simply a matter of changing a number
in a header file and typing 'make'. I have *no sympathy* for anyone whose
software would require more work than this. *NONE*.
One final note. I am one of the recipients of mail to the 'usenet' alias
on tardis.ARPA. As such, I have noticed (just today) new newsgroups called
(of all things) net.internat and net.misc.coke. Plainly, there are people
out there (like me) who aren't usually terribly vocal in this forum, but
nevertheless resent being screwed over by the gods. The result of this
situation will probably be reminiscent of the early days of net.bizarre:
people attempting to carry on a discussion on newsgroups which are flitting
in and out of existence on a daily basis. This is annoying to all concerned,
those trying to sustain the group and those trying to destroy it alike.
At the very least, it would be nice to avoid this situation by declaring
a moratorium on the removal of groups until there is a genuine, rational,
net-wide consensus on how to proceed. That's *net-wide*, not majority
vote of the backbone cabal.
(p.s. If traffic on the backbone is such a problem, why not simply improve
connectivity to eliminate the backbone? This is a *solution* which could
be implemented by *local* decision of backbone sites to shuck some connections,
and *local* decisions at other sites to add new ones. Any takers?)
--
Robert Thau --- The *Young* Curmudgeon.
Greg Woods
> to suit his tastes.
Wrong. He has taken to reorganizing it to suit a consensus of backbone
site administrators, who pay for the damn thing.
> Recently, however, Spafford has taken it upon himself to delete two
> thriving, busy newsgroups --- net.internat and net.bizarre. The case
> of net.internat is especially distressing, as this newsgroup's
> signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore undreamt of on USENET.
The content of the groups is not the issue. These groups were created without
going through the proper procedure which has been WELL DOCUMENTED. We simply
cannot continue to let every bozo who thinks his topic is of interest and
gets 10 people to agree with him create a newsgroup. The removal of this group
is a STATEMENT to the net as a whole: if you do not follow proper procedure,
you cannot create a newsgroup. I support Spaf 100%.
> On top of the fact that two busy newsgroups are going away, the fundamental
> character of the net is being changed, I think, for the worse.
You are, of course, entitled to hold your own opinion. I even agree with it.
But, we have to wake up and face reality: we can NO LONGER AFFORD to allow
anyone to post whatever they want whenever they want. It just isn't practical
any more. We have two choices: do something about it (i.e. change "the
character of the net") or let the net collapse under its own weight. I know
which of those choices *I* prefer. How about you?
> Spaf may not have created the rules he cites, but his *centralized*
> enforcement of them...
...is absolutely mandatory. If there isn't enforcement of the rules from
somewhere, people won't obey them.
> To deal directly with some of Spaf's more obnoxious claims: the deletion of
> net.bizarre does *not* represent "traditional USENET anarchy at its finest,"
He did not, I believe, say that. What he DID say was: the backbone sites
deciding not to CARRY it represented USENET anarchy at it's finest. If you
want to argue with Spaf, I suggest you argue with what he actually said.
Otherwise you are just arguing with yourself.
> What I object to is its unilateral deletion by a
> cabal of topologically well-placed superusers.
Tough. "topologically well-placed" sites are also the ones who PAY for most
of it. If you want to foot our phone bill for net.bizarre, fine. If not, then
don't tell us what we should and shouldn't be willing to pay for.
>A decision not to carry the
> newsgroup at any individual site might be marginally "anarchic," if it were
> not propagated, but a gaggle of rmgroup messages hit absolutely everybody.
True. Again, that is because those groups never should have been created
in the first place. The creators of those groups DID NOT FOLLOW ACCEPTED
and WELL-ESTABLISHED procedures.
> In any case, if the decision were truly a local one, there would have
> been no need to inform the network as a whole, at length, in net.announce.
It wasn't a local one. It's high time people start following the rules. The
net is now simply too big for TOTAL anarchy. If you don't like the rules,
that's a separate issue. Submit articles asking to change them. Perhaps lots
of people agree with you. The present set of rules was indeed agreed upon
years ago; it's a pity we didn't enforce them then, as it wouldn't be so
difficult to do so now.
> Also, while the net.announce posting on the subject contained a number of
> helpful hints on setting up an alternate backbone and so forth, Spaf's real
> feelings on the matter seem to be summed up by the first paragraph,
> which says in full, without qualification, "Net.bizarre is going to go away."
Just so you know, he isn't alone. The group never should have been
created in the first place.
> Postings of this sort, no matter what the content, are symptomatic of
> somebody trying to take control.
That's like saying the police officer who arrested you is also responsible
for making the laws. That isn't so. By your own admission, Spafford did not
make the rules up himself. He's just enforcing them.
> More peculiar is Spafford's contention that established procedures were not
> followed in the creation of net.bizarre. The initial create messages
> were indeed wildcats, but subsequently there *was* a discussion on
> net.news.group, which *did* result in a consensus.
IT DID?? That's news to me! 10 people posting "I want the group" articles
is NOT the kind of consensus called for in the rules, which are WELL STATED
in Spaf's recent posting. I suggest you read them. The rules specifically
state that desire of a number of people is NOT SUFFICIENT GROUNDS to create
a newsgroup. You forgot the #1 criteria: DEMONSTRATED NEED, which means
traffic IN OTHER RELATED GROUPS. There was no such demonstrated need *ever*
for net.bizzare.
> Equally peculiar is Spafford's claim that net.internat was started as
> a wildcat newsgroup. As postings on net.internat itself have made clear,
> the group was mandated at an EUUG meeting.
Since when does EUUG get to make worldwide decisions? If that's the case,
let them create eur.internat. Also, consensus reached at a meeting does
not fit in ANYWHERE in the criteria for newsgroup formation. At least READ
the goddam rules before you start this kind of argument.
> Its cancellation is even more peculiar. On the basis of Spaf's own
> postings, this group seems to be the summum bonum: a technical group
> (easy to justify to management) with a relatively small, but nontrivial
> volume, in which over 50% of the postings have something new and interesting
> to say.
Once again, the content of the group is not at issue. It's method of
creation IS the issue. Let's stick to that, please. We cannot selectively
enforce the rules based on which groups we think are "worthwhile", or then
it really WILL be altering the net to suit our own personal tastes.
> The excuse given several times is that it was not established in accord
> with existing procedures, and thus must be cancelled along with net.bizarre
> in order that "enforcement" be "consistent."
And how many flames do you think Spaf would get if he came out and said
"net.bizzare is garbage, so we're going to remove it, but net.internat
has useful material in our opinion, so we're going to keep that one". That
truly WOULD be subjective removal of groups.
> Emerson aside, this argument
> doesn't carry much weight, since net.bizarre *was* (eventually) created
> in accord with the existing procedures.
No, it wasn't. There was never any demonstrated need by postings in other
groups. Re-read the rules, particularly #1.
> (Yes, I know about the kill-list feature of 'rn'. No, I haven't tried it.
> No, I don't think it would help. New garbage shows up more quickly than the
> old garbage goes away). One possible solution is simply yoking in the idiots,
> e.g. with moderated groups. Ignoring the fact that moderated groups so far
> seem half-successful at best, moderation implies central control, the evils
> of which are by now apparent.
To whom? YOU? I'm beginning to think that SOME form of control is ESSENTIAL.
Moderation seems to me to be the lesser of several possible evils.
> What's left? The best one can do is try to provide a haven for those
> interesting discussions which do arise from time to time.
Who gets to decide what is "interesting"? That's why the rules were created
in the first place, to provide OBJECTIVE criteria for justifying new groups.
>To this end
> newsgroups are created among users. If the net is going
> to remain worthwhile as more people sign on, newsgroup
> creation has got to get more flexible, not more rigid.
I couldn't disagree more. The major problem with the net right now is
simple: TOO MUCH TRAFFIC. New groups increase traffic; that is a fact.
We have to SLOW DOWN the rate of growth. Newsgroup creation needs to become
MORE controlled, not less.
> In other words, a new newsgroup can only be created to siphon off a
> flood of drivel
..or a flood of good articles on a clearly-definable topic...
> This requirement
> seems particularly odd when stated by someone whose stated concern is the
> a minimization of total net volume, and who objects to new newsgroups
> on the basis that they might (heaven forbid!) provide a forum for articles
> that might not get otherwise posted.
That is EXACTLY why you have to demonstrate a need first! That shows that
you would NOT, in fact, create a home for articles that wouldn't otherwise
get posted because THEY ARE ALREADY GETTING POSTED!
>If net.bizarre proves anything at all,
> it is that the last thing we need is another newsgroup with a *demonstrated
> volume* of postings!
net.bizarre is a PERFECT illustration of why the "demonstrated need"
criterium is so important. These postings are in fact articles that would
not have been posted if the group had not been created. The "demonstrated
volume" of which you speak occured AFTER the group's creation; the rules
state that the demonstrated need should occur BEFORE creation. Thus, if the
rules had been followed the group wouldn't have gotten created and there
would have been LESS traffic on the net as a result.
> At another point, Spafford notes that:
>
> > Creating a newsgroup just because
> > the topic is interesting is *NOT* something we have had as part of this
> > procedure [for creating new groups].
>
> In so far as this sentence even makes sense (which it doesn't), it says
> that small newsgroups sustaining interesting discussions are absolutely
> out of the question. JUST WHAT THE HELL IS THIS NETWORK FOR, ANYWAY???
There is nothing wrong with creating new, interesting discussions. What
Spaf's sentence says is that we can't create a new group for every one of
them. If you have a topic you want to discuss, fine. Post an article on
it in a related group. If there truly ISN'T a related group (which I highly
doubt; I challenge you to come up with a topic that isn't at least marginally
related to that of an existing newsgroup), use net.misc, that's what it is for.
IF an ongoing discussion starts, THEN suggest creating a newsgroup for it. If
it doesn't, then the newsgroup wasn't needed in the first place.
> So why not make it a mailing list? As has been pointed out in this
> forum repeatedly, it is often the case that far more people want to read
> a newsgroup than to write it. It's also worth pointing out that good
> postings require thought, and thought takes time, so in a newsgroup
> containing thoughtful discussion, the volume will inevitably be relatively
> low.
Volume in EXISTING groups is not the point. We're talking about creation
of NEW groups here.
> Another Spafford objection to creation of new newsgroups which seems partially
> reasonable at first blush is that locally written software is breaking
> because it's running out of space.
> ...Adjusting it for more groups, should
> that become necessary (it hasn't) is simply a matter of changing a number
> in a header file and typing 'make'. I have *no sympathy* for anyone whose
> software would require more work than this. *NONE*.
Nor do I. I hate it when my articles get lost because someone was too
lazy to upgrade. So, I might agree that ONE of his points was shot down,
but that does not change the fact that the proper procedure was NOT
followed when net.internat and net.bizarre were created. Therefore, they
should be removed.
> As such, I have noticed (just today) new newsgroups called
> (of all things) net.internat and net.misc.coke. Plainly, there are people
> out there (like me) who aren't usually terribly vocal in this forum, but
> nevertheless resent being screwed over by the gods.
Two suggestions: 1) follow proper procedure when you create your groups, so
that the "gods" won't be tempted to "screw you over"; and 2) don't post
to or try to read groups that were not created by the proper procedure,
because they cannot be expected to stay around.
>The result of this
> situation will probably be reminiscent of the early days of net.bizarre:
> people attempting to carry on a discussion on newsgroups which are flitting
> in and out of existence on a daily basis. This is annoying to all concerned,
> those trying to sustain the group and those trying to destroy it alike.
Tough. If those trying to create the group had followed the proper procedure
in creating it, it wouldn't be "flitting in and out of existence".
> At the very least, it would be nice to avoid this situation by declaring
> a moratorium on the removal of groups until there is a genuine, rational,
> net-wide consensus on how to proceed. That's *net-wide*, not majority
> vote of the backbone cabal.
I think you are being very unrealistic here. While we are waiting for
the netwide vote, who in the hell do you think is paying the phone bills?
What you are trying to do will probably force the "backbone cabal" into
refusing to carry the groups on their sites, thereby effectively killing
the group, but it's even worse than that; there will be "local pockets"
of the group in existence, and people will continue to post articles
there, unaware that most of the net won't get to see it. It is to prevent
THAT situation that the "backbone cabal" sends out the "rmgroup" messages
for groups that they have decided not to carry. If you still want a local
group, fine; create a local group. The "backbone cabal" has zero control
over any local groups you create. The FACT is that you CAN'T have a netwide
group without the cooperation of the backbone sites.
> (p.s. If traffic on the backbone is such a problem, why not simply improve
> connectivity to eliminate the backbone? This is a *solution* which could
> be implemented by *local* decision of backbone sites to shuck some connections,
> and *local* decisions at other sites to add new ones. Any takers?)
I agree completely. If you don't like what the backbone is doing, arrange
your own connections to other parts of the country. Then YOU will be paying
the phone bills so YOU will get to decide what groups to carry and pay for.
I'd be curious to see if there are, in fact, any "takers".
> --
> Robert Thau --- The *Young* Curmudgeon.
--Greg
--
{ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!noao | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!noao}
!hao!woods
CSNET: woods@NCAR ARPA: woods%ncar@CSNET-RELAY
Ron Natalie <ron>
> It seems that Gene Spafford has recently taken to reorganizing USENET
> to suit his tastes. At first, he simply deleted a number of small,
> inoffensive newsgroups which had practically no traffic anyway.
But now he has gone out and created a whole shit load of mod.groups that
have no readership potential. WHY? He has carefully hidden this effort
in his stated effort of moving all the fa groups to be mod groups. Well
I'm an ARPANET user and none of that mod.computers.* shit exists. He
contradicts himself on his policies of list creation. The traffic from
these idiotic group creation messages and the empty directories that they
have started alone is probably a significant load on the symbiosis of the
net.
> Recently, however, Spafford has taken it upon himself to delete two
> thriving, busy newsgroups --- net.internat and net.bizarre. The case
> of net.internat is especially distressing, as this newsgroup's
> signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore undreamt of on |
Annoying yes, but not too distressing. As I pointed out the last time
he tried to deep-six an thriving group, if you delete it it will just
automatically come back. It is only the respect by the individual sites
for the net-experts like SPAF that causes these lists to really go away.
What is particulary annoying is that SPAF is not special in his powers,
any self-righteous person whose willing to offer to serve a lot of other
machines in their area (and become a de facto backbone site) can play
net censor. I am currently fighting this out with our own management
here, who would like nothing more than to quench net.jokes, net.motss,
and other groups. If we do not fulfill our committment to not censor
the news, we risk losing it all. Hence we pass all the news along without
regard to content.
-Ron
Just what exactly is the "Clouds Project" anyway?
Gene Spafford
slander. As a very "visible" person on the net, I've gotten my share
of abuse for trying to help keep things going. If I let every little
slam get to me, I'd have quit long ago. I realize that there are many
little individuals who try to make themselves seem important by writing
long and impressive rants about various things. So it is with the
article to which I am responding. I would normally ignore this
(especially since it is crossposted to net.trash...er, net.flame)
However, Mr. Thau makes one or two grievious errors of fact that I
would hate others to accept merely due to lack of rebuttal. I will
include some semi-flame comments so the low-lifes who view
net.flame as a reason for being will have a brief, somewhat bright
moment out of this rather dull affair. --EHS)
In article <6...@h-sc1.UUCP> th...@h-sc1.UUCP (robert thau) writes:
>"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
> --- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Controversy equalizes fools and wise men -- and the fools know it"
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
This, of course, is also a snappy quote, and helps explains Mr. Thau's
posting, I would guess.
>It seems that Gene Spafford has recently taken to reorganizing USENET
>to suit his tastes.
First error of fact. Were I to be reorganizing it to suit my tastes,
there would be only a few unmoderated "net" groups, considerably more
regional groups, and some better set of rules and guidelines than
currently exists. What I *have* been doing is attempting to make
things a little more organized and consistent. And it hasn't been just
recently.
>(...But what does small global volume (1-2 messages per week) add up to?)
Does anyone know where Mr. Thau can go (his machine is at Harvard)
where they can teach him to add? Multiplication would be helpful
too. Then maybe we can continue this chat and talk about phone bills.
>Recently, however, Spafford has taken it upon himself to delete two
>thriving, busy newsgroups --- net.internat and net.bizarre.
The PLO is thriving and busy too, but I don't want them using my
machine, nor am I going to pay for their phone calls. Busy is not
sufficient justification for existence...except in government civil
service jobs.
>The case
>of net.internat is especially distressing, as this newsgroup's
>signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore undreamt of on USENET.
One-to-one? (sorry, folks.)
>Spaf may not have created the rules he cites, but his *centralized* enforcement
>of them, with a literal-mindedness rarely seen outside of fourth-grade
>classrooms and the IRS, is something entirely new. Spaf's oft-repeated
>hallucination that the New Order already came about three years ago,
>and that he is simply "continuing to maintain" it (a direct quote),
>by the power vested in him by nobody in particular, is simply wrong.
No comment. ("By dint of railing at idiots we run the risk of becoming
idiots ourselves." --Gustave Flaubert)
...naw, I can't resist. Why did you combine the 4th grade and the IRS
in that comparison? Did you find the 4th grade particularly taxing?
>I was here too.
Right. And we have all noticed how you have worked at maintaining a
major news feed, and justified the costs to your administration. We've
noted how you've helped write and debug the news software, maintain the
newsgroups, write tutorials for new users, answer thousands of
questions by mail, and otherwise contribute to the general welfare.
Your many constructive comments and suggestions in groups other than
net.flame have been recognized by many. That's why I value your
comments so much.
>I admit that net.bizarre consists, at this point,
>entirely of trash. What I object to is its unilateral deletion by a
>cabal of topologically well-placed superusers.
Object away. We objected to it remaining. My mail (as of 9pm tonight)
is over 20 to 1 in favor of the move. You are one of only 3 people
whom I have heard stating objections to it.
>A decision not to carry the
>newsgroup at any individual site might be marginally "anarchic," if it were
>not propagated, but a gaggle of rmgroup messages hit absolutely everybody.
gaggle, n. -- a flock of geese, hence a chattering company.
(Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary, Unabridged)
...hit EVERYONE? My lord, what happens to news when it gets to your
machine? Flocks of geese attacking your users! No wonder you're
upset! ...or were you just exaggerating a mite?
>In any case, if the decision were truly a local one, there would have
>been no need to inform the network as a whole, at length, in net.announce.
You're objecting to us notifying the user community about what we did
and why? Hmmm, then I guess we could have avoided some of your tirade if
we had tried to do it in secret. That's a mighty nice philosophy you
have there. Or maybe you objected to the use of net.announce? What
would have been your choice -- net.rec.birds? The purpose of
net.announce is: "Moderated, general announcements of interest to all."
Oh, okay, maybe you're right -- it probably wasn't of interest to a few
people.
Also, whoever said it was a local decision? (You did, right there -- I
read it myself. And you were wrong.) It had been discussed in
net.news.group about a month ago, and in mail with all 26+ backbone
admins, plus comments in other newsgroups.
>Also, while the net.announce posting on the subject contained a number of
>helpful hints on setting up an alternate backbone and so forth, Spaf's real
>feelings on the matter seem to be summed up by the first paragraph,
>which says in full, without qualification, "Net.bizarre is going to go away."
I should have said, "Net.bizarre is maybe going away"?
Was I wrong?
>Postings of this sort, no matter what the content, are symptomatic of
>somebody trying to take control.
Hah! I'm crazy, but I'm not THAT crazy. Why would anyone want
"control" of this net? In fact, I don't think "control" can even be
defined in this context, let alone realized. You have never met me or
conversed with me on *anything* (to my knowledge) -- how can you
derive such a conclusion, other than as a paranoid fantasy?
>More peculiar is Spafford's contention that established procedures were not
>followed in the creation of net.bizarre. The initial create messages
>were indeed wildcats, but subsequently there *was* a discussion on
>net.news.group, which *did* result in a consensus. What's the gripe?
Major error of fact. It wasn't consensus -- it was resignation. We
gave up sending out "rmgroup" messages in hopes that the group would
die out on its own or we could find a way of making a "rmgroup" stick.
>Equally peculiar is Spafford's claim that net.internat was started as
>a wildcat newsgroup. As postings on net.internat itself have made clear,
>the group was mandated at an EUUG meeting.
EUUG != Usenet. Mandates have little meaning without control. (aha!
Maybe that is the "cabal" seeking control which has you so worried?)
>Its cancellation is even more peculiar. On the basis of Spaf's own
>postings, this group seems to be the summum bonum: a technical group
>(easy to justify to management) with a relatively small, but nontrivial
>volume, in which over 50% of the postings have something new and interesting
>to say.
Technical to you.
Relatively small compared to net.flame.
New and interesting to you.
You != Usenet.
>Compare that to net.unix. (Or has it improved since I unsubscribed?)
(Cheap shot for the net.flamers: Not "since", "because")
Net.unix is for beginners to ask questions. To the more experienced users,
those sometimes seem trivial or very naive. What do you have against
novices? Just what do you believe to be wrong with the group?
>However, we only truly arrive in tripped-out looking-glass electric kool
>aid wonderland when we examine Spafford's ideas on how a newsgroup *should*
>come into being.
(Another for the flamers: If you have difficulty adding (as above), I
suppose even tying your shoes might bring on such an attitude. Or is it
a complication of your paranoia?)
>Ignoring the fact that moderated groups so far
>seem half-successful at best,...
If you mean half of them have been successful, maybe I can agree.
It depends on your view of success.
>...moderation implies central control, the evils
>of which are by now apparent.
It does? They are? That conclusion only comes to people attempting to
tie their shoes, Robert.
>If the net is going
>to remain worthwhile as more people sign on, newsgroup
>creation has got to get more flexible, not more rigid.
And how long will the net last when the load finally causes more backbone
sites to drop out? Flexible creation is not the complete answer. It
may be part of the answer, but it certainly is not correct all by itself.
>Another Spafford objection to creation of new newsgroups which seems partially
>reasonable at first blush is that locally written software is breaking
>because it's running out of space. Well, I've written my own software.
>It runs (more or less) on a PDP-11. Adjusting it for more groups, should
>that become necessary (it hasn't) is simply a matter of changing a number
>in a header file and typing 'make'. I have *no sympathy* for anyone whose
>software would require more work than this. *NONE*.
Great! I'm glad that you have written such software and are going to
document and distribute it to every net site that needs it, and that
you'll handle bug fixes and upgrades, and you'll make sure that it
fits into memory on *every* machine that needs to run it.
Gee, maybe you aren't such a jerk after all.
>One final note. I am one of the recipients of mail to the 'usenet' alias
>on tardis.ARPA. As such, I have noticed (just today) new newsgroups called
>(of all things) net.internat and net.misc.coke. Plainly, there are people
>out there (like me) who aren't usually terribly vocal in this forum, but
>nevertheless resent being screwed over by the gods.
Ahem. I don't think I want to hear about you being "screwed over" by
any gods. I hope that they're at least humanoid gods.
As to the "newgroup" messages, if you bothered to see the followup, it
was a mistake caused by a faulty shell file. It was not an attempt to
recreate the groups.
>At the very least, it would be nice to avoid this situation by declaring
>a moratorium on the removal of groups until there is a genuine, rational,
>net-wide consensus on how to proceed. That's *net-wide*, not majority
>vote of the backbone cabal.
It isn't a cabal. (Nor is it a gaggle.)
If you'll go back and read my article again, you'll see that I suggested
that just such a discussion be started in net.news. If we declare
a moratorium on deletions, we should also declare one on creations, too.
Lauren Weinstein has been suggesting the same to me for a while now.
>(p.s. If traffic on the backbone is such a problem, why not simply improve
>connectivity to eliminate the backbone? This is a *solution* which could
>be implemented by *local* decision of backbone sites to shuck some connections,
>and *local* decisions at other sites to add new ones. Any takers?)
Good move! Suggest something and then ask someone else to do it. That is
precisely the attitude that causes us most of our problems netwide.
There are too many individuals suggesting great things but doing nothing
themselves -- except complain at length.
USENET: "Those who can, try. Those who can't, bitch and moan mightily
about the ones who try."
I've directed followups to net.flame where they belong.
--
Gene "sometime in 1986" Spafford
The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA
uucp: ...!{akgua,decvax,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!spaf
Lord Frith
>
> net.bizarre does *not* represent "traditional USENET anarchy at its finest,"
> nor even at its lowest.
I agree. There was no point made in deleting net.internat or net.bizarre.
I vote to bring them back. After all.... this IS an anarchy.
Jim R Oldroyd
>
>to suit his tastes. At first, he simply deleted a number of small,
>inoffensive newsgroups which had practically no traffic anyway. Nobody
>particularly cared. (This has been defended as follows: "even small
>(local) volume adds up to a large amount net-wide." But what does small
>global volume (1-2 messages per week) add up to?)
>
>Recently, however, Spafford has taken it upon himself to delete two
>thriving, busy newsgroups --- net.internat and net.bizarre. The case
>of net.internat is especially distressing, as this newsgroup's
>signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore undreamt of on USENET.
>
any authority that MAY have been invested in him this time. It is very
useful for someone to be willing to divest their time and other resources
to administer the network - although EUNET/USENET was founded on the basis
that there was NO central administration, some attention is necessary.
>On top of the fact that two busy newsgroups are going away, the fundamental
>character of the net is being changed, I think, for the worse.
>Spaf may not have created the rules he cites, but his *centralized* enforcement
>of them, with a literal-mindedness rarely seen outside of fourth-grade
>classrooms and the IRS, is something entirely new.
>
I beleive that this the NET does not want a centralised network as
this will completely kill the spirit of the thing. I have NEVER sent
an article to a moderator, and probably never will. What attracts me
to this network is EXACTLY that which Spafford has decided to remove from us
all - the freedom of speech and the right to communicate without
a censor.
Do his actions not seem somewhat DICTATORY to you? If not, just look
what I received this morning:
a newgroup for MOD.POLITICS.
MOD.POLITICS????? MOD.POLITICS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? EH?!?! WHAT!!
It's about time, Spafford, that you pay some attention to all the
personal flames directed at you and stop playing GOD.
--
These are MY personal comments - not those of my sheep.
--
++ Jim R Oldroyd
++ j...@inset.UUCP
++ ..!mcvax!ukc!inset!jr
Bob Halloran
>> Equally peculiar is Spafford's claim that net.internat was started as
>> a wildcat newsgroup. As postings on net.internat itself have made clear,
>> the group was mandated at an EUUG meeting.
>
> Since when does EUUG get to make worldwide decisions? If that's the case,
>let them create eur.internat. Also, consensus reached at a meeting does
>not fit in ANYWHERE in the criteria for newsgroup formation. At least READ
>the goddam rules before you start this kind of argument.
If consensus reached at a continental conference of system users, which
continent happened to NOT be North America, is insufficient to justify
creation of a technical newsgroup for issues of software development
for non-North-American environments, then how the deletable-expletive
can a consensus of a dozen-odd sysops justify the removal of such a
group? Or their decision to re-arrange groups (fa.* to mod.*); I seem
to recall a general reaction of 'Huh?!' when it was announced this
summer, and when someone asked, the response was 'Oh, we decided on
that at the BOF meeting at Usenix'. If the backbone cabal can make
worldwide decisions to boink traffic, I see no reason why an official
user's organization cannot make a decision to generate some. As to
restricting it to Europe, there is also the issue of Australasian
distribution, and for my part, I want to know what the non-NorthAm
users are looking for.
Bob Halloran
Sr MTS, Perkin-Elmer DSG
=============================================================================
UUCP: {decvax, ucbvax, most Action Central}!vax135\
{topaz, pesnta, princeton}!petsd!pedsgd!bobh
USPS: 106 Apple St M/S 305, Tinton Falls NJ 07724 DDD: (201) 758-7000
Disclaimer: My opinions are my own.
Quote: "Delay is preferable to error." - Thomas Jefferson
Roger Klorese
Or do the intelligent thing and make your sites call you.
--
... "What were you expecting, rock'n'roll?"
Roger B.A. Klorese
Celerity Computing, 40 Speen St., Framingham, MA 01701, (617) 872-1772
UUCP: seismo!harvard!bu-cs!celtics!roger
ARPA: celtics!ro...@bu-cs.ARPA
Lord Frith
the usual Netwnews fashion HOWEVER the intent of the following fills me
with fear and loathing. It strikes me as yet another example of one
person or group of persons attempting to assert their doctrine over the
entire community....
In article <18...@hao.UUCP> wo...@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) writes:
>>
>> Recently, however, Spafford has taken it upon himself to delete two
>> thriving, busy newsgroups --- net.internat and net.bizarre. The case
>> of net.internat is especially distressing, as this newsgroup's
>> signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore undreamt of on USENET.
>
> The content of the groups is not the issue. These groups were created
> without going through the proper procedure which has been WELL DOCUMENTE.
> We simply cannot continue to let every bozo who thinks his topic is of
> interest and gets 10 people to agree with him create a newsgroup.
And I suppose that the privelage to create newsgroups should be reserved
to the system administrators so that those obnoxious bozos won't propagate
their drivel? Who is this "we" that you speak of? Is this the royal "we."
Do you speak for all site administrators or is this your own personal creedo?
>> On top of the fact that two busy newsgroups are going away, the fundamental
>> character of the net is being changed, I think, for the worse.
>
> You are, of course, entitled to hold your own opinion. I even agree with it.
> But, we have to wake up and face reality: we can NO LONGER AFFORD to allow
> anyone to post whatever they want whenever they want. It just isn't practical
> any more. We have two choices: do something about it (i.e. change "the
> character of the net") or let the net collapse under its own weight. I know
> which of those choices *I* prefer. How about you?
I fully disagree with your assertion that "we" cannot allow just
anyone to post whatever they want because it isn't "practical." The
existance of the net is NOT dependent upon how practical or effecient
you might perceive it to be. It is reliant only upon generous backbone
sites that will shell out the bucks for long-distance high-volume
calls. I doubt the net will ever "collapse" under it's own weight as
long as there are people to post articles and people who will read them.
>> Spaf may not have created the rules he cites, but his *centralized*
>> enforcement of them...
>
> ...is absolutely mandatory. If there isn't enforcement of the rules from
> somewhere, people won't obey them.
And since WHEN is it necessary to beat people over the heads and force them to
obey a centralized set of bureacratic rules? Usenet "rules" are actually
guidelines for use and were never made to be enforced. If so then we would
already have a centralized bureacracy pontificating over our every action.
Perhaps the fact that people WON'T obey tells you that you shouldn't be
expecting them to do so.
And how can we trust any central body of administrators to perform the will
of the community any better than the community itself?
>> What I object to is its unilateral deletion by a cabal of topologically
>> well-placed superusers.
>
> Tough. "topologically well-placed" sites are also the ones who PAY for most
> of it. If you want to foot our phone bill for net.bizarre, fine. If not,
> then don't tell us what we should and shouldn't be willing to pay for.
What you are willing or not willing to pay for effects sites down the pike
that rely on you for news. How about being a little more considerate of
the needs of people in general? Your site may pay the bills, but that
doesn't mean you can ignore the needs of everyone else.
>> In any case, if the decision were truly a local one, there would have
>> been no need to inform the network as a whole, at length, in net.announce.
>
> It wasn't a local one. It's high time people start following the rules. The
> net is now simply too big for TOTAL anarchy. If you don't like the rules,
> that's a separate issue. Submit articles asking to change them. Perhaps lots
> of people agree with you. The present set of rules was indeed agreed upon
> years ago; it's a pity we didn't enforce them then, as it wouldn't be so
> difficult to do so now.
There are those words again... "we" and "enforced." May I suggest that the
rules of the net be enforced IN SOFTWARE according to a commonly held set
of rules? Voting could be accomplished automatically. That would make
a fun project.
>> Postings of this sort, no matter what the content, are symptomatic of
>> somebody trying to take control.
>
> That's like saying the police officer who arrested you is also responsible
> for making the laws. That isn't so. By your own admission, Spafford did not
> make the rules up himself. He's just enforcing them.
But Spafford alone doesn't have a mandate from the community to enforce
them. The police officer does. Looks to me like you folks are holding
tenaciously to the letter of the law but not to it's spirit. Does the
wildcat creation of a set of useful newsgroups justify the almost
punitive action of removing them?
> I couldn't disagree more. The major problem with the net right now is
> simple: TOO MUCH TRAFFIC. New groups increase traffic; that is a fact.
> We have to SLOW DOWN the rate of growth. Newsgroup creation needs to become
> MORE controlled, not less.
No no no no no no! Slowing down the rate of growth is NOT the same as
excersising control over newsgroup creation. You regulate flow by adapting
the network topology to the flow. Build in more redundancy and coordinate
calls between sites more effectivly. By controlling newsgroup creation you
also control newsgroup content.
> net.bizarre is a PERFECT illustration of why the "demonstrated need"
> criterium is so important. These postings are in fact articles that would
> not have been posted if the group had not been created. The "demonstrated
> volume" of which you speak occured AFTER the group's creation; the rules
> state that the demonstrated need should occur BEFORE creation. Thus, if the
> rules had been followed the group wouldn't have gotten created and there
> would have been LESS traffic on the net as a result.
But this is like saying that we should know the utlitarian value of something
before using it. This often is not the case. I agree that the Usenet
procedures should have been adhered to. I do NOT think that the removal
of net.bizarre or net.internat was justified since it kow-tows to the letter
of an informal law.
>> The result of this situation will probably be reminiscent of the early
>> days of net.bizarre: people attempting to carry on a discussion on
>> newsgroups which are flitting in and out of existence on a daily
>> basis. This is annoying to all concerned, those trying to sustain the
>> group and those trying to destroy it alike.
>
> Tough. If those trying to create the group had followed the proper procedure
> in creating it, it wouldn't be "flitting in and out of existence".
The only reason newsgroups are "flitting OUT of existance" is because some
site administrator thinks he has to enforce the rules to the letter or the
world will come crashing down around our heads. So what if the rules were
bent? Instead of heavy-handed CENTRAL administration I suggest a more
reasonable approach... like educating people or enhancing the software
to facilitate the structure that the entire community thinks is desirable.
j...@alice.uucp
the lack of necessity for nut.flame, Gene? I've been
reading it for about two weeks now, and I haven't seen one
article of value (except to the poster, who relieved
his or her self in public) that wasn't posted
to two newsgroups (one of them nut.flame in spite of well known
and understood rules).
A few years ago, I used to digest net.flame, when the
mod.ber group was created for moderated digests. At that
time, nut.flame had a different (and perhaps it's intended)
nature, in that it contained a lot of articles with some basis
in logic or fact, but that were written in rhetorically cheap
ways, using emotional blackmail, straw-man construction,
and the like. At that time, nut.flame did NOT have the
gratituitous nature evidenced now, in particular, there
were few, and rapidly withdrawn, evidences of profanity,
obscenity, and suggestions for illegal acts.
Perhaps, in view of the overwhealming nature of nut traffic,
we should cut back on some of the groups that are hard to
justify when our bosses ask WHY we're forwarding this
"slander, libel, insult, and plain childishness". In fact,
I suggest that we (as a group) will HAVE to cut back on this
sort of traffic if we expect to see the net remain in place.
In particular, consider how hard it is to justify someone's
suggestion for an illegal act to a company lawyer who is
already scared fecesless of nutnews due to the "potential liability
of sending all that stuff around".
Please don't mail insults and the like to me, I'll only throw them
out or give them to the police, if necessary. If you want to
DISCUSS something, and you are able to quietly, reasonably,
and honestly do so, then write. If not, save on all of our
phone bills and contribute to the welfare of the net.
--
SUPPORT THE NET, STAMP OUT MISUSE.
"Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for netnews..."
yoursite!/dev/null
Responses of merit to nut.news.group
Curtis Jackson
>and other groups. If we do not fulfill our committment to not censor
>the news, we risk losing it all. Hence we pass all the news along without
>regard to content.
At this point in USENET's evolution, if we \DO/ fulfill that 'committment'
we are \guaranteed/ to lose it all. Get your head out of the sand -- we
have sites out there with phone bills of over $100,000 a month (an extremely
unusual and generous case, I'll admit). Over 2 years ago I dropped all news
feeds except those I could contact on Cornet (AT&T internal corporate
telephone network) due to management pressure. And we [were]
"THE PHONE COMPANY"! After that, I started getting hassles for tying up
the Cornet lines after 5pm when noone (at this location, anyway) is even
here! My immediate supervisor stepped in and told them that it was a
valuable part of our group's education and public source procurement.
We've got to do something, and we're lucky to have the Spaf spearheading
a lot of it. I don't agree with everything that he says/does (rmgroup
of net.internat, for instance), but he is getting things moving in the
right direction. I'd post all the letters that went around between us
backbone admins and Spaf, but that article would be VERY large indeed --
the removal of net.bizarre in particular was NOT spur-of-the-moment
and was NOT a Spaf-only phenomena.
--
The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291)
alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj
...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj
bradford wilson
I see that Mr. Spafford has outdone himself this time:
> (Preface: Normally, I try to avoid responding to petty insults and
> slander.
> (especially since it is crossposted to net.trash...er, net.flame)
> >"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
> > --- Ralph Waldo Emerson
>
> "Controversy equalizes fools and wise men -- and the fools know it"
> Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
>
> This, of course, is also a snappy quote, and helps explains Mr. Thau's
> posting, I would guess.
--- H.L. Mencken
This, of course, is also a snappy quote, and helps explain Mr. Spafford's
posting, I would guess.
> >Recently, however, Spafford has taken it upon himself to delete two
> >thriving, busy newsgroups --- net.internat and net.bizarre.
>
> The PLO is thriving and busy too, but I don't want them using my
> machine, nor am I going to pay for their phone calls. Busy is not
> No comment. ("By dint of railing at idiots we run the risk of becoming
> idiots ourselves." --Gustave Flaubert)
> Right. And we have all noticed how you have worked at maintaining a
> major news feed, and justified the costs to your administration. We've
> noted how you've helped write and debug the news software, maintain the
> newsgroups, write tutorials for new users, answer thousands of
> questions by mail, and otherwise contribute to the general welfare.
> Your many constructive comments and suggestions in groups other than
> net.flame have been recognized by many. That's why I value your
> comments so much.
too much (to coin a phrase.)
> Object away. We objected to it remaining. My mail (as of 9pm tonight)
> is over 20 to 1 in favor of the move. You are one of only 3 people
> whom I have heard stating objections to it.
enough to know how net.bizarre lovers really feel, let's all Mail him.
C'mon, let the Cloud Lover know how you feel, and while you're at it,
why not mail any garbage you have in your accounts to him. (This oughta
tie up the net!) Heh heh. :-)
> ...hit EVERYONE? My lord, what happens to news when it gets to your
> machine? Flocks of geese attacking your users! No wonder you're
> upset! ...or were you just exaggerating a mite?
it oh no geese ohmigod hahahahaha gasp sob ack gag barf sigh.
> >...moderation implies central control, the evils
> >of which are by now apparent.
>
> It does? They are? That conclusion only comes to people attempting to
> tie their shoes, Robert.
issues he addresses and go for the cheap insult. That's OK by me, 'cos I
don't feel bad about doing the same to your posting.
> >It runs (more or less) on a PDP-11. Adjusting it for more groups, should
> >that become necessary (it hasn't) is simply a matter of changing a number
> >in a header file and typing 'make'. I have *no sympathy* for anyone whose
> >software would require more work than this. *NONE*.
>
> Great! I'm glad that you have written such software and are going to
> document and distribute it to every net site that needs it, and that
> you'll handle bug fixes and upgrades, and you'll make sure that it
> fits into memory on *every* machine that needs to run it.
with folks like yourself. :-|
> >One final note. I am one of the recipients of mail to the 'usenet' alias
> >on tardis.ARPA. As such, I have noticed (just today) new newsgroups called
> >(of all things) net.internat and net.misc.coke. Plainly, there are people
> >out there (like me) who aren't usually terribly vocal in this forum, but
> >nevertheless resent being screwed over by the gods.
>
> Ahem. I don't think I want to hear about you being "screwed over" by
> any gods. I hope that they're at least humanoid gods.
Dig this, flamers, and gasp in awe. Robert has a message (which
you would see if not for Spafford's selective editing), and Mr. S. picks
instead on his rather colorful metaphor. What's wrong, Spaf. Feeling guilty
about those sexual God-desires?
> >(p.s. If traffic on the backbone is such a problem, why not simply improve
> >connectivity to eliminate the backbone? This is a *solution* which could
> >be implemented by *local* decision of backbone sites to shuck some connections,
> >and *local* decisions at other sites to add new ones. Any takers?)
>
> Good move! Suggest something and then ask someone else to do it. That is
> precisely the attitude that causes us most of our problems netwide.
> There are too many individuals suggesting great things but doing nothing
> themselves -- except complain at length.
Ah, yes. But alas, Robert (nor I) are heads of sites, and if we
tried to do something productive without first going through the red tape
that your kind has created, we would get busted for Net Abuse.
> USENET: "Those who can, try. Those who can't, bitch and moan mightily
> about the ones who try."
"Those of you who think you know everything are damned
annoying to those of us who do."
> The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
I always wondered where clouds came from...
*** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MFAN MAIL **R FAN MAIL ***
The Wombat .:.
_ __ __ ___ _^_^_
/ ~ ~ ~ \/ . \
---| | \__:
\___________/\_____/
| | | | \/
| | | |
/____\/____\
Gene Spafford
>[various blather deleted]
>...- although EUNET/USENET was founded on the basis
>that there was NO central administration, some attention is necessary.
Usenet sprang up from a few sites exchanging mailing lists. It had no
charter, and effectively still doesn't. It needs a lot more than "some"
attention if it is to continue in anything like its current form.
>I beleive that this the NET does not want a centralised network as
>this will completely kill the spirit of the thing. I have NEVER sent
>an article to a moderator, and probably never will. What attracts me
>to this network is EXACTLY that which Spafford has decided to remove from us
>all - the freedom of speech and the right to communicate without
>a censor.
You, sir, are full of shit. I have no no intention of removing anyone's
right to communicate or freedom of speech. I have done nothing to
remove either of those rights, and any claims to the contrary are
obviously exaggerations. Whether or not you decide to participate
in the moderated news groups is up to you. You have complete freedom
of choice as to what newsgroups you post to and what you care to
say in your postings.
>Do his actions not seem somewhat DICTATORY to you? If not, just look
>what I received this morning:
>
> a newgroup for MOD.POLITICS.
>
>MOD.POLITICS????? MOD.POLITICS?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? EH?!?! WHAT!!
You just received it today? Gee, you have a pretty slow news link.
That group has been around for at leat 6 months. Admittedly, nobody
every used it, but it has been around. Perhaps you just saw it appear
again because Erik Fair is switching all the "fa" newsgroups to "mod"
newsgroups at ucbvax this week. The Arpa poli-sci newsgroup will
be gatewayed into mod.politics.
Now, please explain to me how providing you with a newsgroup is
"dictatory"?
>It's about time, Spafford, that you pay some attention to all the
>personal flames directed at you and stop playing GOD.
I do pay attention to all the flames directed at me. Most of them are
ravings such as yours or Mr. Thau's which seem to exhibit a distinct
lack of awareness about what is actually going on. That's why I ignore
them. It also makes a difference when my private mail vastly
outnumbers this nonsense cross-posted to net.flame, and which supports
what I've done. Odd, most of those letters are from site
administrators who have a little better idea of what is going on.
I'm not playing GOD (or God or god). First off, I seldom play at
*anything*. Secondly, I don't imagine being a supernatural being is
much fun since people probably would be more reluctant to invite me to
parties. If I did have divine powers, I would have the compassion to
try to improve the level of understanding and tolerance of such ravers
as yourself and Mr. Thau, and cure your paranoia. But that would deny
so many people a good chuckle. See? Being a GOD wouldn't be any fun.
So rest assured, I won't bother with it.
Followups to net.flame.
--
Gene "sometime in 1986" Spafford
The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
Erik E. &
BOF meetings at the various USENIX Conferences, there has NEVER been an
action taken on the network with out the usual procedure of building
consensus on the network itself.
One such discussion which received notice was the one regarding the
proposed removal of net.general. A vote was taken at the meeting in
which the majority of people present were in favor of removal.
However, it was put to the network itself in net.news.group thereafter,
and the result was that we still have net.general.
No UNIX conference (be it EUUG or USENIX or /usr/group) is large enough
that it can constitute a quorum of USENET members, and therefore no
such meeting can make decisions for the network. The people that you
could call the `leading citizens' of the network have always been
cognizant of this, and submitted proposals to the network at large,
regardless of the outcome of any vote at any specific meeting.
As an aside, even if we codified rules for such meetings, there would
always be someone feeling disenfranchised because they didn't get their
two cents in; this has been my personal observation of several
cooperative and volunteer organizations over the last five years.
On the other hand, if people don't pay attention to the designated
newsgroup for meta-discussions of the network (e.g. net.news.group),
then they have only themselves to blame for the state of the network as
a whole.
Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fa...@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU
The Napoleon of Crime
write today.
Gene's Behavior:
Well folks, it strikes me that the arguments against Gene so far have been
1) this is a democracy/anarchy/whatever, and thus we all have an equal say
in it, 2) nobody discussed it and 3) all non-technical newsgroups have the
same worth.
To 1): A slight misconception here, folks. Some people are supporting
Usenet software. Some people are paying to have both gold and manure
shipped via Usenet, especially those who own backbone sights. When you put
in two weekends of work a month to keep software going, I think that person
has more say over what goes on or off the net than most. And I think the
people who are footing the bill are the ones who have the BIGGEST say.
2): I think it's been discussed for the last five weeks in
net.news.groups. Read those description of it in that document you're
supposed to read when you get onto Usenet (in net.announce.newusers).
That's where the forum exists. Ignorance isn't an excuse here -- it's kinda
like voting; you hafta pay attention to these things.
3) Good argument. Nasty consequences if we follow it up, though.
Net.bizarre:
Well, as one of the people who voted to have it installed (when it was
legally asked to be installed in net.news.group), I can only give my value
judgement: I'm glad it's gone. Sure, there was good stuff: the Bizarre
Gazette and some individual postings. But the level of crap -- do you
remember the 3000 line article that was a core dump of a program, and ended
with a line that said "My program won't run -- can you look at the dump and
fix it?" A D+ joke IF the person had truncated it to 25 lines. I've since
removed Stupid People's Court from there (it's back in net.flame or via
mailing list (mail to moi if interested)), but arguably that's crap too.
Let me try to put my two main points in a more concise manner:
I remember when I was reading the news at the University of Washington two
years ago. Somebody was talking about something Chuq had done (or was
planning to do), and I objected to it, saying people can't play God on the
news network. Well, I'm probably as stupid as I've always been (if not more
so), but I've had a little experience, and a couple things have occurred to
me:
1) SOMEBODY'S got to be God(s) on this network. Otherwise, the software
doesn't get updated, the network connections aren't updated, and you can't
get mail from point A to point B.
2) 1) takes a lot of work and time and money (except for those rare and
cherished individuals who do this work for free).
3) According to the individuals in 1), their bosses at the backbones sites
(where the majority of the news is passed) are talking about a lot of
cutbacks. Why? Well, the industry (much of it) is in a recession. People
are being laid off. Factories are closing. And it's probably a LITTLE
DAMN DIFFICULT to justify net.bizarre, net.flame,
net.any-non-technical-thing to the corporation when you've just had to lay
off N * 10 number of individuals. Heck, it's tough to justify the net at
all given this.
4) So given the above *realities* (not abstracts -- their is nothing less
abstract than a family going on welfare, or with a reduced paycheck), I am
having a little trouble with those individuals humming "The Star-Spangled
Banner" and waving First Amendment Rights over their heads. We're looking
at priorities here, gang, and it's time to pick them.
5) I really like posting to the net. It's one of my favorite things to do.
But if someone comes up to me tomorrow and says, "net.comics and net.tv and
net.movies have been canceled due to too much traffic", I don't see that I
have much beef. If someone says "AT&T has decided not to be backbone sites
any longer", I can't argue with that either. I'm a bit amazed that we've
got what we've got now. I hope it continues. But if the circumstances
discussed above happen, there's not much I can argue with. And if cutbacks
in some newsgroups will help cut down the traffic, and it's discussed in the
proper forum (heck, Spaf has asked for opinions on changing the PRESENT
forum -- didn't you people read his first article? He bent over backwards
to be fair), then I give a reluctant thumbs-up. Boy, I hope net.comics and
net.movies don't go. But nobody said life was going to be fair, and those
who are paying for, or supporting, this service are the ones who should be
making the decisions (with opinions gotten from the newsgroup at large, via
net.news.groups).
One last note... over the years I've been reading and posting news, I don't
think there is anyone on the net (with the exception of Jerry Boyajian) who
I have never met with in person, nor talked with on the phone, but have
written to and read from that is more a gentleman than Gene Spafford. He
avoids histrionics. He does tons of work for the Net (like The Hortons, like
Chuq used to, like countless others I could mention), I assume for free. He
is invariably pleasant in his conversations. He seems quite professional.
In short, the term "Southern Gentleman" keeps giving off word association
value with Gene. So perhaps the people going off on exaggerated diatribes
against Spaf might cut back their spite and observe those who are currently
disagree with his actions and his views, but are being polite and
to-the-point in their discussions. I've gone off the deep end myself (I
just recently did, to Tim Maroney, and I feel pretty bad about it), and can
understand how it happens; but these kind of attacks reflect badly on the
poster and the views that were posted, and do no one any good. If you have
posted one of these notes to Gene, no jibes; just please, let keep the
name-calling out of it.
Err... let's be careful out there.
"OW! Rubber spider venom! That's not fair!"
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
ARPA: fluke!mori...@uw-beaver.ARPA
UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, sb6, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>
Greg Woods
> worldwide decisions to boink traffic, I see no reason why an official
> user's organization cannot make a decision to generate some.
Because the "backbone cabal" PAYS for most of it. The user's organizations
do not.
--Greg
--
{ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!noao | mcvax!seismo | ihnp4!noao}
Kenneth Adam Arromdee
>On the other hand, if people don't pay attention to the designated
>newsgroup for meta-discussions of the network (e.g. net.news.group),
>then they have only themselves to blame for the state of the network as
>a whole.
> Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fa...@ucbarpa.BERKELEY.EDU
I must have said it quite a few times already, but I am NOT PERMITTED to
read net.news.group. Nor is anyone else at Hopkins. I can't very well be
blamed for not reading something if I am not permitted to read it!
How about cross-posting all discussions about the fate of a group to that
group? Come on, it's not that hard!
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------
If you know the alphabet up to 'k', you can teach it up to 'k'.
Kenneth Arromdee
BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS
CSNET: ins_...@jhunix.CSNET
ARPA: ins_akaa%jhu...@hopkins.ARPA
UUCP: ...{decvax,ihnp4,allegra}!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!aplcen!jhunix!ins_akaa
Lord Frith
procedures and recreate it. That way any wildcat removal of the group
will be contrary to net policies.
Greg Woods
> person or group of persons attempting to assert their doctrine over the
> entire community....
Why is that? Because it doesn't agree with what YOU want? It works
both ways, you know.
> And I suppose that the privelage to create newsgroups should be reserved
> to the system administrators so that those obnoxious bozos won't propagate
> their drivel? Who is this "we" that you speak of? Is this the royal "we."
> Do you speak for all site administrators or is this your own personal creedo?
I suggest that before you flame me in public you check your facts. I am
not a site administrator. I am merely doing what everyone else is doing,
which is stating my opinion. Anyone who reads this newsgroup is entitled
to do so. By "we", I meant EVERYONE on the net. If you read it differently,
then you read what you wanted me to have said, not what I DID say.
> I fully disagree with your assertion that "we" cannot allow just
> anyone to post whatever they want because it isn't "practical." The
> existance of the net is ... reliant only upon generous backbone
> sites that will shell out the bucks for long-distance high-volume
> calls.
And I think you are engaging in wishful thinking. Phone bills ARE mounting
to the point where groups ARE being cut by backbone sites. If we do not come
to some kind of agreement on how to limit net traffic, then the net really WILL
be run by the "backbone cabal" deciding what they can afford to pay for. Phone
bills CANNOT increase without bound. There HAS to be a limit SOMEWHERE. The
only question is, what is the limit and how shall it be imposed.
> And since WHEN is it necessary to beat people over the heads and force them to
> obey a centralized set of bureacratic rules? Usenet "rules" are actually
> guidelines for use and were never made to be enforced. ...
> Perhaps the fact that people WON'T obey tells you that you shouldn't be
> expecting them to do so.
Perhaps you are right. But, if we don't come to an agreement on SOME kind
of rules, then traffic will continue to increase at the alarming rate it
currently is. And if whatever rules are agreed upon are not enforced, then
they are a joke. How do YOU propose to limit net traffic, or do you really
live on Cloud 9 and think traffic can continue to be unlimited?
> And how can we trust any central body of administrators to perform the will
> of the community any better than the community itself?
Depends on what you mean by "better", doesn't it? In our "free" society,
we indeed to have a "central body of administrators performing the will
of the community". It's called the Congress, the President and the Supreme
Court. The reason we have this is simple: it is impractical to give
EVERYONE input into EVERY decision that has to be made. I think that applies
to the net, too, and I believe that whether or not I end up being one of the
"central body" or not.
> What you are willing or not willing to pay for effects sites down the pike
> that rely on you for news. ... Your site may pay the bills, but that
> doesn't mean you can ignore the needs of everyone else.
We don't. We pass on a lot of articles that I'm fairly sure no one on
this site ever reads. But, there has to be a LIMIT. I do not WANT to see
the limit imposed by the backbone because of their own personal tastes. That's
why I'd much rather see a centralized set of rules that EVERYONE obeys.
> May I suggest that the
> rules of the net be enforced IN SOFTWARE according to a commonly held set
> of rules? Voting could be accomplished automatically. That would make
> a fun project.
Not a bad idea. I am not opposed to such a suggestion, if it can be
implemented. Two questions would have to be answered; first, who is going
to write and test the new software, and second, what do we do about sites that
refuse to use the new software?
> But Spafford alone doesn't have a mandate from the community to enforce
> them. The police officer does.
I don't think a police officer has any more of a "mandate" than Spaf
does. I think a lot of laws shouldn't be on the books, but I can still
be arrested for violating them. The fact that some people don't like the
current set of rules doesn't necessarily mean there is no "mandate" to
enforce them. Perhaps as a result of this discussion we will FIND OUT
if there is a mandate to enforce them or not.
> Looks to me like you folks are holding
> tenaciously to the letter of the law but not to it's spirit. Does the
> wildcat creation of a set of useful newsgroups justify the almost
> punitive action of removing them?
Yes it does, because if the rules aren't enforced THIS time, it will
be doubly hard to enforce them NEXT time. And for the record, I am not
one of "you folks".
> No no no no no no! Slowing down the rate of growth is NOT the same as
> excersising control over newsgroup creation. You regulate flow by adapting
> the network topology to the flow. Build in more redundancy and coordinate
> calls between sites more effectivly. By controlling newsgroup creation you
> also control newsgroup content.
I do not see that this is the case at all. Anyone can post whatever they
want. Nothing is in place to stop them. I do agree that some of the other
suggestions in this paragraph might be useful. Let the sites that want
net.bizarre arrange their own connections and PAY for it. No problem with that.
> But this is like saying that we should know the utlitarian value of something
> before using it. This often is not the case. I agree that the Usenet
> procedures should have been adhered to. I do NOT think that the removal
> of net.bizarre or net.internat was justified since it kow-tows to the letter
> of an informal law.
What do you think will happen if we do not enforce the letter of the law?
I can tell you that; we will then get into endless arguments about whether
this or that topic is worthy of an exception to the rules. I personally
consider that alternative to be unacceptable.
> The only reason newsgroups are "flitting OUT of existance" is because some
> site administrator thinks he has to enforce the rules to the letter or the
> world will come crashing down around our heads.
I happen to agree with him. The recent newsgroup cuts at utzoo is the
beginning of the crash. Not only WILL it happen if we don't do something,
it has already started.
> So what if the rules were bent?
What good is having rules if people are allowed to "bend" them?
> Instead of heavy-handed CENTRAL administration I suggest a more
> reasonable approach... like educating people or enhancing the software
> to facilitate the structure that the entire community thinks is desirable.
This has been attempted and it has failed. net.announce.newusers was
created for this purpose, and yet we STILL have people asking what SO means
in net.singles, or what have you, evidence that they did not READ the stuff
that was there to "educate" them. And we can't even get sites to upgrade
to COMPATIBLE versions of the news software, never mind something that
"we" have deemed "better".
--Greg
--
{ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!noao | mcvax!seismo | ihnp4!noao}
Lindsay F. Marshall
>
>do not.
>
Uh uh, as I have pointed out several times before this isnt true everywhere.
In the UK we share the cost between all the sites - perhaps its time something
like that happened "over there". Remember USA != world (for the zillionth time)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lindsay F. Marshall, Computing Lab., U of Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, UK
ARPA : lindsay%cheviot.new...@ucl-cs.arpa
JANET : lin...@uk.ac.newcastle.cheviot
UUCP : <UK>!ukc!cheviot!lindsay
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
J.HALLE
net.abortion, or any other "soapbox" groups. They serve a very
important purpose: keeping the net clear of junk so that others
can read what they want without having to wade through the
(insert favorite expletive). Without these groups, net.flame,
net.misc, and others will be flooded even worse than they are
now. And don't say, "Use the n key." Often the titles are
misleading or incomplete. Besides, why waste the time reading
the header when it should be unnecessary.
Instead of removing the groups, why not make it impossible to
cross-post from them. Thus something posted to net.politics,
net.flame, and net.misc, e.g., will only go to net.politics.
Henry Spencer
> to the system administrators so that those obnoxious bozos won't propagate
> their drivel? Who is this "we" that you speak of? Is this the royal "we."
> Do you speak for all site administrators or is this your own personal creedo?
He certainly speaks for a lot of us, especially on the backbone.
> The existance of the net is NOT dependent upon how practical or effecient
> you might perceive it to be. It is reliant only upon generous backbone
> sites that will shell out the bucks for long-distance high-volume calls.
In other words, it is very much dependent on how practical and efficient
the backbone sites perceive it to be. Speaking as site admin of one of
them, on the whole I support what Spaf is doing. The disparity between
our generosity and the demands being placed on it is growing.
> I doubt the net will ever "collapse" under it's own weight as
> long as there are people to post articles and people who will read them.
And sites that will pay to transmit them -- don't forget that. Collapse
of the network is something that most of us consider a serious possibility.
> And since WHEN is it necessary to beat people over the heads and force them to
> obey a centralized set of bureacratic rules? ...
Actually, since the beginning. The semi-orderly structure of newsgroups
you see before you was not a happy accident.
> Perhaps the fact that people WON'T obey tells you that you shouldn't be
> expecting them to do so.
Fine, if they won't pay any attention to us, why should we subsidize them?
Do you really want all the backbone sites to say "to hell with it" and stop
forwarding news? Bear in mind that there will be few volunteers lining up
for the privilege of paying exorbitant phone bills for your benefit.
> And how can we trust any central body of administrators to perform the will
> of the community any better than the community itself?
Who's talking about the will of the community here? The will of the
community will not pay my phone bills.
> What you are willing or not willing to pay for effects sites down the pike
> that rely on you for news. How about being a little more considerate of
> the needs of people in general? Your site may pay the bills, but that
> doesn't mean you can ignore the needs of everyone else.
And whose needs are you ignoring? Maybe we have more important uses for
that money than paying phone bills with it. (Incidentally, don't you
think that the starving people in Ethiopia have more need for, say, the
top half of your paycheck than you do?)
> There are those words again... "we" and "enforced." May I suggest that the
> rules of the net be enforced IN SOFTWARE according to a commonly held set
> of rules? Voting could be accomplished automatically. That would make
> a fun project.
Actually, it would make a large and difficult project. That aside, I am
all in favor of this if there is a fee of, say, $20 per vote, the proceeds
to go towards the backbone's phone bills. If you aren't going to help with
our financial problems, don't expect us to live and die by your votes. That
would be -- to correctly apply a frequently-misused word -- fascism. That is,
the notion that we should cooperate for the common good no matter how much it
hurts, whether we like it or not. I am quite sure that the net is capable
of voting itself unlimited quantities of bread and circuses at our expense.
Forget it.
> But Spafford alone doesn't have a mandate from the community to enforce
> them. The police officer does. ...
He doesn't? Prove it. Please don't say that he hasn't won an election or
something like that -- neither has your local police department. If a vote
really were held to confirm your police department's mandate, I suspect it
would win... and I suspect Spaf would too. Considering that the alternative
(in both cases) is anarchic collapse.
> ... Does the
> wildcat creation of a set of useful newsgroups justify the almost
> punitive action of removing them?
No (although I hope you aren't claiming net.bizarre is useful!), but it
does justify firmly telling them to go back and go through the proper
procedures (with the associated chance of failure) just like everyone else.
> No no no no no no! Slowing down the rate of growth is NOT the same as
> excersising control over newsgroup creation. You regulate flow by adapting
> the network topology to the flow. Build in more redundancy and coordinate
> calls between sites more effectivly. By controlling newsgroup creation you
> also control newsgroup content.
Right, improving the overall signal/noise ratio at the expense of the trash.
Please explain what you mean by "adapting the network topology" and "build
in more redundancy" (the redundancy in the existing net improves reliability
at the cost of still higher phone bills!) and "coordinate calls more
effectively". Ten to one we've heard it all before, and it doesn't work.
Or else it demands still deeper pockets on our parts. I agree that slowing
down the growth is not the same as controlling newsgroup creation, because
the latter probably will not suffice for the former. It's probably a
necessary first step, though.
> But this is like saying that we should know the utlitarian value of something
> before using it.
Yup, it's like saying that I should know the usefulness of something before
I spend a lot of money on it. What a terrible thought. How many mink tea
cozies do you own?
> The only reason newsgroups are "flitting OUT of existance" is because some
> site administrator thinks he has to enforce the rules to the letter or the
> world will come crashing down around our heads.
Yeah, and in the long run, overall, he's probably right.
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
Piet Beertema
>The case of net.internat is especially distressing, as this
>newsgroup's signal-to-noise ratio has reached heights heretofore
>undreamt of on USENET.
>The content of the groups is not the issue.
>But, we have to wake up and face reality: we can NO LONGER AFFORD to allow
>anyone to post whatever they want whenever they want. It just isn't practical
>any more. We have two choices: do something about it (i.e. change "the
>character of the net") or let the net collapse under its own weight.
>....desire of a number of people is NOT SUFFICIENT GROUNDS to create
>a newsgroup.
>Equally peculiar is Spafford's claim that net.internat was starte
>as a wildcat newsgroup. As postings on net.internat itself have
>made clear, the group was mandated at an EUUG meeting.
>Since when does EUUG get to make worldwide decisions? If that's the case,
>let them create eur.internat.
>Its cancellation is even more peculiar. On the basis of Spaf's own
>postings, this group seems to be the summum bonum: a technical group
>(easy to justify to management) with a relatively small, but
>nontrivial volume, in which over 50% of the postings have something
>new and interesting to say.
>Once again, the content of the group is not at issue.
>New groups increase traffic; that is a fact.
Summing up:
- a sheer number of people/votes is not enough to create a new group;
- the contents of a new group don't justify its creation;
- an international forum, like an EUUG meeting (that *not* only Europeans
did attend) is not a place to decide about creation of a new group;
- (still) only "established need" justifies creation of a new group.
Conclusion: there's no way a new group can ever more be created, unless you
flood another group on a net already "collapsing under its own weight"....
Bullshit!
Now first of all leave the narrow viewpoint of a USENET that stops at
the boundaries of the United States. It really reaches farther these days,
covering a large part of the world.
Then take a look at why this network can exist worldwide at all: that's
because of the very presence of technical newsgroups, that justify the
very high transmission costs to spread the news all over the net; all
the other groups in this sense are just noise, that of necessity *must*
have a limited distribution.
And then judge for yourself if the creation of a new technical group should
be judged on the same basis as new noisegroups. Obviously not. So the contents
of (new) groups *are* important, very important! And the statement that new
groups just increase traffic? Yes, for noisegroups; but certainly not for
technical groups: there new groups provide an excellent means of specializing
and thus limiting the traffic!
It was for these reasons that net.internat was created; true, it didn't
follow the established procedures; there's no excuse for that. But the
Copenhagen meeting proved that there was need for it, primarily in Europe,
but also elsewhere; the discussion following the creation of the group
clearly showed that. Of course the group could have been restricted to
Europe only by creating it as eunet.internat (we don't know about eur.*
groups), but given the wider interest it would have been unwise and very
narrow-minded to do so. That's why it came into existence as net.internat.
But the rmgroup of net.internat was just as unwise and unnecessary, given
the interest it had (and still has). And that's exactly why even some US
backbones refused to go along with it, so some or most of you still get it.
And if you regret having been cut off: net.internat will be back soon....
--
Piet Beertema, CWI, Amsterdam
(pi...@mcvax.UUCP)
Dave Lukes
>> worldwide decisions to boink traffic, I see no reason why an official
>> user's organization cannot make a decision to generate some.
>
> Because the "backbone cabal" PAYS for most of it. The user's organizations
>do not.
<<ENTER SARCASTIC MODE>>
Are you trying to tell me that every month (quarter, year, ...)
the backbone admins all pull out their wallets/chequebooks
and pay all the phone & net bills for their sites from their salaries??
WOW!! What WONDERFUL people they must be, and with the amount of mail/news
going through the backbones, they must all be totally destitute by now.
<<EXIT SARCASTIC MODE>>
One little detail that all the backbone admins carefully omit to mention
is that it's not THEM PERSONALLY paying, but their EMPLOYERS who pay the bills:
were THEY consulted before the removal of net.internat?
I would have thought that commercial realities made internationalisation
more important than <insert name of your favourite leisure oriented group here>.
Also, as has been previously stated, in the UK, we try to SHARE the cost around,
thus (hopefully) preventing backbones from being too autocratic.
Yours impecuniously,
Dave Lukes.
--
All opinions, philosophies, dogmas and idiosyncrasies expressed in this article
INCLUDING THIS DISCLAIMER, are solely those of the author.
Scott Crenshaw
>
> You just received it today? Gee, you have a pretty slow news link.
> That group has been around for at leat 6 months. Admittedly, nobody
> every used it, but it has been around.
If nobody ever used it, isn't it an ideal candidate for deletion ?
--
Scott Crenshaw {akgua,decvax}!mcnc!rti-sel!scirtp
SCI Systems , Inc. Research Triangle Park, NC
The views represented may or may not be those of my employer.
Glenn C. Scott
> I fully disagree with your assertion that "we" cannot allow just
> anyone to post whatever they want because it isn't "practical." The
> existance of the net is NOT dependent upon how practical or effecient
> you might perceive it to be. It is reliant only upon generous backbone
> sites that will shell out the bucks for long-distance high-volume
> calls. I doubt the net will ever "collapse" under it's own weight as
> long as there are people to post articles and people who will read them.
Wanna bet ? The volume of the net is EXACTLY what the backbone sites are
concerned about. It seems fairly clear that the volume of the net and the
"weight" of the net are synonymous. This volume is what is driving up
the multi-thousand dollar phone bills I see every month. The net will
certainly collapse if there isn't anyone to pay the costs for your morning
feeding of news.
> What you are willing or not willing to pay for effects sites down the pike
> that rely on you for news. How about being a little more considerate of
> the needs of people in general? Your site may pay the bills, but that
> doesn't mean you can ignore the needs of everyone else.
Hold it right there. SDC volunteered their site as a backbone because we
thought USENET was a good thing. We have given our time, money and equipment
to help keep it moving. However this free use of our time, money and
equipment extends only as far as it does not become a big burden. For us
USENET is becoming a burden and it's headed toward becoming a big burden. The
liabilities are outweighing the assets.
And by the way, we *can* completely ignore the needs of everyone else. After
all it's our money and we can spend it where we want. We aren't obligated to
being a backbone site. No backbone site is obligated to be a backbone site.
I think it's about time for these reactionaries to start putting their money
where their mouths are. This is a community -- help support it or shut up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Glenn Scott System Development Corporation Santa Monica, Califonia 90406
213-820-4111 X5653
Larry Campbell
> > Because the "backbone cabal" PAYS for most of it. The user's organizations
> >do not.
> Uh uh, as I have pointed out several times before this isnt true everywhere.
> In the UK we share the cost between all the sites - perhaps its time something
> like that happened "over there". Remember USA != world (for the zillionth time)
How do you handle the accounting for this? And how do you enforce it?
This requires centralized administration (SOMEBODY has to compute the bills,
and collect them, and send rebates for long-distance calls, etc. etc.).
I really don't understand how this can work.
--
Larry Campbell decvax!genrad
The Boston Software Works, Inc. \
120 Fulton St. seismo!harvard!wjh12!maynard!campbell
Boston MA 02109 / /
ihnp4 cbosgd
ARPA: maynard.UUCP:camp...@harvard.ARPA
Kenneth Adam Arromdee
I agree that the groups should stay, but why make it impossible to
cross post? That would remove some traffic, but also remove some readers
for articles that cover several categories. Anyway, it's not too hard to
save a file, then post it separately several times to several newsgroups.
David Messer
> cross-post from them. Thus something posted to net.politics,
> net.flame, and net.misc, e.g., will only go to net.politics.
And for that matter; is cross-posting really necessary at all?
A large part of the information flood is caused by people
cross-posting to every newsgroup they can think of. For
instance, the above newsgroup list (unchanged from the
original posting). Net.flame is the worst group for this;
virtually every posting in net.flame is cross-posted to the
group to which the sender wants to flame.
--
David Messer UUCP: ...ihnp4!circadia!dave
FIDO: 14/415 (SYSOP)
Lord Frith
>
> <<ENTER SARCASTIC MODE>>
> Are you trying to tell me that every month (quarter, year, ...)
> the backbone admins all pull out their wallets/chequebooks
> and pay all the phone & net bills for their sites from their salaries??
> WOW!! What WONDERFUL people they must be, and with the amount of mail/news
> going through the backbones, they must all be totally destitute by now.
> <<EXIT SARCASTIC MODE>>
>
Ah ... but it IS the backbone administrator who must go before his
supervisor and justify the phone bills. When you run a computer
facility and control the money ... you DO begin to think of it as
your own paycheck because how you administer your budget directly
affects the perception your supervisor has of your performance.
Henry Spencer
> net.abortion, or any other "soapbox" groups. They serve a very
> important purpose: keeping the net clear of junk so that others
> can read what they want without having to wade through the
> (insert favorite expletive). Without these groups, net.flame,
> net.misc, and others will be flooded even worse than they are
This is a real problem, but it has to be faced. The junk has to be
stamped out, not just walled off into its own corner, because we can
no longer afford to transmit it.
Lord Frith
>> that rely on you for news. How about being a little more considerate of
>> the needs of people in general? Your site may pay the bills, but that
>> doesn't mean you can ignore the needs of everyone else.
>
> Hold it right there. SDC volunteered their site as a backbone because we
> thought USENET was a good thing. We have given our time, money and equipment
> to help keep it moving. However this free use of our time, money and
> equipment extends only as far as it does not become a big burden. For us
> USENET is becoming a burden and it's headed toward becoming a big burden. The
> liabilities are outweighing the assets.
>
> And by the way, we *can* completely ignore the needs of everyone else. After
> all it's our money and we can spend it where we want. We aren't obligated to
> being a backbone site. No backbone site is obligated to be a backbone site.
If you completely ignore the needs of other sites then you won't be a backbone
much longer. This is hardly a solution. Sensitivity to other people's needs
is a first step to discovering a solution, not this isolationist "well we
pay the bills so we can do as we damned well please."