Causes on the net...
Lauren Weinstein
Someone recently proposed a "net.peace" group. While the cause would
appear quite laudable, it presents a general problem as well.
Does USENET exist to provide "free or cheap" conduits for any and
all groups that might desire to "piggyback" their operations onto the
net? For example, in the case of the net.peace proposal, an implied
benefit of using USENET was that it would reduce costs for the
"organizing" activities of peace activists. Of course, this could
only occur since other people and organizations would be footing
the various bills, one way or another. Is it proper to try use
the network in this manner?
Another point. Let's say for the sake of the argument that we
say net.peace is OK (remember, the person proposing it suggested
it would be used for organizing activities). What do we say
when OTHER groups come along? Hawkish groups? Religious groups?
Racial hate groups? Not to mention commercial trade industry groups of
one sort or another. What if THEY also want to "cut their costs"
by using USENET as a virtually "free" information conduit (from
their standpoint, anyway?) Be they commercial or not, is this
really what USENET should be used for?
We're going to see more and more cases where the use of the network
will become confused between pure "information exchange" and
"the furtherance of specific causes." My own view is that USENET
should concentrate on the former and discourage the latter in newsgroups.
I invite comment.
--Lauren--
John Donovan
> Some interesting questions arise...
>
> Someone recently proposed a "net.peace" group. While the cause would
> appear quite laudable, it presents a general problem as well.
>
> Does USENET exist to provide "free or cheap" conduits for any and
> all groups that might desire to "piggyback" their operations onto the
> net? For example, in the case of the net.peace proposal, an implied
> benefit of using USENET was that it would reduce costs for the
> "organizing" activities of peace activists. Of course, this could
> only occur since other people and organizations would be footing
> the various bills, one way or another. Is it proper to try use
> the network in this manner?
>
is a real need, I am convinced, for a peace forum where people with
an interest can share ideas. I would like to go one step further and
open up the forum to people who might not have a VAX in their office,
but who would love to share ideas with other kindred sould. Their
financial arrangements, it seems to me, are between them and whoever
supplies the port. I don't see anyone getting a free ride, but simply
democratising access to a technology that has very high barriers to
entry (i.e., owning a VAX).
> Another point. Let's say for the sake of the argument that we
> say net.peace is OK (remember, the person proposing it suggested
> it would be used for organizing activities). What do we say
> when OTHER groups come along? Hawkish groups? Religious groups?
> Racial hate groups? Not to mention commercial trade industry groups of
> one sort or another. What if THEY also want to "cut their costs"
> by using USENET as a virtually "free" information conduit (from
> their standpoint, anyway?) Be they commercial or not, is this
> really what USENET should be used for?
>
> We're going to see more and more cases where the use of the network
> will become confused between pure "information exchange" and
> "the furtherance of specific causes." My own view is that USENET
> should concentrate on the former and discourage the latter in newsgroups.
This is the key point. Where and how do you draw the line? I think
that net.peace would quickly become such a magnet for people who want
to flame at the rad/lib types that any serious organizing work would
quickly become impossible. Besides, who wants to notify hecklers of
where their next meeting or event will be? This is best left to private
networks, or private forums.
What is left is a forum for persons with an interest in peace who
want to share ideas with like minded people. I don't see where this
conflicts with current net policy, or even how it could be abused. At
worst, it could resemble net.flame or net.politics--both of which
provide occasional nuggets of humor and intelligent commentary.
I would like to see net.peace given a chance, monitored, and
evaluated. I think it would make a positive contribution to Usenet.
.t>
Lauren Weinstein
into a parallel of net.politics almost immediately. Our resources for
new newgroups are being stretched to the limit. Has anyone else
noticed that mail delivery from some major sites has become increasingly
unreliable lately? I strongly suspect that part of the problem is
the massive load that netnews is taking, particularly on systems with
limited numbers of ports/dialers. I can't prove that this is the
whole problem, but it certainly seems significant.
It might be "interesting" if our resources were limitless, and if we
could support the worldwide distribution of anything, no matter how
fascinating or mundane, that anyone wanted to say. Of course, nobody
would ever be able to wade through all the muck that would result
in a non-moderated environment, but that's a different issue entirely.
But netnews is seeing a large population increase, and I think we're
still at the base of what might ultimately be an almost exponential
growth curve. It's becoming increasingly clear that NOTHING we do
in the current framework will save the current environment in the
long run. It simply will (eventually) collapse under its own weight.
But in the short to middle-term, we can try keep things useful for
a while longer by trying to avoid unnecessary major new influxes of new
discussion groups, especially when such discussion can be absorbed by
existing groups. Frankly, if a net.peace group appeared and many
in the "peace" community with a computer or terminal suddenly started
sending stuff in (when they had nothing to do with netnews in the past)
we'd be inundated with material, arguments, counter-arguments, etc.
It seems to me that the nature of the network is such that it can
only really sustain a certain number of active contributors at any
one time. You can theoretically let millions of people READ the
materials (just like millions watch TV), but if too many people
are trying to send IN material, and if it ALL gets "published"
(that is, a non-moderated environment) then the overload is going
to get worse and worse, both in terms of costs (both obvious
and non-obvious) and in terms of information "saturation" that
will gradually cause more and more people to stop reading netnews.
We are at a critical phase in netnews' lifecycle. It is time to
step back and reconsider what we really want netnews to be, and
how to deal with 100's of 1000's of users in the near future,
many of whom may want to send in ALL SORTS of stuff, or start
ALL SORTS of groups. At any given time, we all have finite
resources to work with. Even Stargate doesn't represent
an infinite resource, though it will avoid many of the problems
that we're starting to see on netnews today. But it's not the
whole solution by itself.
--Lauren--
John Gilmore
is a good experiment to try. Enough people on the net are interested in
creating and keeping the peace that I think there's a critical mass.
The net seems to be a forum for more than just techno-talk and I for one
am very glad of that.
Maybe a "mod.peace" would make it more likely to contain useful info and less
likely to contain flames.
There are a few cheap "public access" sites here in San Francisco,
e.g. the Well (call 415-332-6106 and login as "newuser"), where
non-computer peaceniks can access the net. University computer centers
are another place this can happen. I will give accounts on my system
to peace-people or groups here in SF if they want to network via my
system. All these sites all carry their weight (of other peoples'
traffic they don't themselves read); they aren't freeloading. If they
want to talk peace rather than [or in addition to] unix, why not?
PS: I probably wouldn't read it except a skim every few months.
Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner
of letting special interest groups, no matter how laudable their
goals, use the net as a 'free' communications medium is both unfair
to the current users/sites and could significantly speed the death of
usenet.
Sites can only aford so much comm time and disk storage before they
drop out, and once the backbone drops out, the net can no longer
function.
(Also, I can see a politicaly 'hot' group like this being formed
causing a few systems to drop out...is it worth it?)
I agree with a previous posting: let them set up a PC BBS and use
PC Pursuit if they want to keep their costs down.
--
Opinions expressed are public domain, and do not belong to Lotus
Development Corp.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Simcha-Yitzchak Lerner
{genrad|ihnp4|ima}!wjh12!talcott!sesame!slerner
{cbosgd|harvard}!talcott!sesame!slerner
slerner%ses...@harvard.ARPA
Brad Templeton
ideas. Sorry, folks, this just isn't one of the functions can perform
any more. Only if the issues are non-controversial can information
be exchanged as suggested. Any controversial issue gets bogged down
in noise quickly. Net.women.only didn't work and many other groups
suffer the same fate.
Everybody is for peace, but my experience is that everybody has
different definitions of terms and differentideas about how peace
should be maintained and or nurtured.
Good luck. The net has died, compared to what it was over 4 years
ago when I joined. When I get the time, I'll set up Usenet, Inc. and
we'll have a useful net again.
--
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
Don Jackson
Everyone burns a bit of disk space, cpu time, and phone
charges to participate on USENET. It seems to me that most of
the larger sites contribute more than their "fair share"
(I don't consider my site to be large).
It is easier to justify
this expense when you think the groups are all net.unix-wizards
and net.lang.c, etc. Next, everyone (including me) subscribes to
all the "hobby" type groups that interest them (music, sports,
their favorite personal computer). Then there are the "opinion"
groups (religion, abortion, politics, and flame come to mind).
Now a group for organization of political activity by a group
of people with a not universally shared (Universality isn't really
the point, it just doesn't make things any easier) agenda.
I'm glad I don't have to get my management to sign off on USENET
related expenses, especially if they had seen the entire contents
of even one days messages. I think the net is pushing it's luck
if more and more non-technical groups proliferate. It is just making
it more difficult to justify the expense. Many large sites
are for-profit publicly-owned corporations, these are the kinds of
places where cover-your-??? type decisions are made daily.
What are we going to do if some of the big players pull out?
One other thing. If person/company "a" gives somebody "b" an account
on their computer, fine. If person "b" sends a message from a's computer
to z's, there is a very good chance that other nodes helped to pay for
that message. It seems that some respondents to this topic are confusing
their right to give somebody an account versus the cost to others of allowing
that person the priviledge of sending USENET mail.
Sorry this is so long.
I'm not "anti-peace".
I'm speaking only for myself, not my company.
Don
Paul Van de Graaf
>It seems to me that the nature of the network is such that it can
>only really sustain a certain number of active contributors at any
>one time. You can theoretically let millions of people READ the
>materials (just like millions watch TV), but if too many people
>are trying to send IN material, and if it ALL gets "published"
>(that is, a non-moderated environment) then the overload is going
>to get worse and worse, both in terms of costs (both obvious
>and non-obvious) and in terms of information "saturation" that
>will gradually cause more and more people to stop reading netnews.
>
I'm not all that familiar with the internal workings of Usenet, but it seems
some form of moderation other than moderated newsgroups would help to curb
traffic. What I'm suggesting is some form of quotas on traffic on a per
site, newsgroup, or user basis. In short, a site, newsgroup, or user would
be allowed to post only so much in a given time period, and then no more.
Given this kind of advance information, network flow and transmission costs
could be predicted. Administration of quotas would be left up to the site.
Whether this can be done within the framework of current software remains to be
seen, but I'm sure such a policy would certainly improve the signal to noise
ratio. When posting is limited, users will think twice about sending out the
sort of garbage which fills net.bizarre & flame much of the time. The ability
to post articles should be a priviledge that can be taken away for mis-use.
New users might be required to read news for a while to find out the policies
of the net, before being able to post. Whether this borders on censorship is an
issue to be explored, but nearly all newspapers/magazines/etc. are censored in
some way (ie. edited). A quota system would provide a form of self-censorship,
without requiring the lag and inconvenience of moderated newsgroups.
I've left a lot of details out, because I don't know enough about Usenet to
comment specifically on its administration. I'm just a user who muddled into
this discussion because I read a few pointers to it in net.columbia & bizarre.
Additional proposals & comments on curbing traffic would be interesting...
Paul van de Graaf sdcsvax!sdcc3!ee161bep U. C. San Diego
Lauren Weinstein
on this net, since none of us pays the full cost for distributing
our message throughout the network. We may pay a little for the
initial sending of the message... but after that it vanishes
into the abyss of the net and is paid for by virtually everyone.
Thusly, it seems pretty clear that only topics that "everyone" agrees
they are willing to pay for (one way or another) should be suitable
for newsgroups. Otherwise, mailing lists should be used, ideally
getting the permission of intermediate sites if direct connections
for distributing the mail are not planned.
As a practical matter, unless a mailing list consists totally
of direct connections to the recipients, there is by definition
"freeloading" going on. The important issue is to what extent
we want to discourage or encourage people from using the "community"
resources of Usenet for particular ends, particularly given our
current traffic and load problems. It's not a matter to be
considered lightly.
--Lauren--
Lee D. Coller
>
>Maybe a "mod.peace" would make it more likely to contain useful info and less
>likely to contain flames.
>
Why not use mod.politics (the moderator is James Armstrong Jr. (nyssa@abnji)).
I think that this is the apropriate group for this subject. So far this group
has been unused (I have only seen one posting on this machine.).
I really don't think we want another net group for this. The last thing the
net needs is another net.origins or net.abortion.
>
>PS: I probably wouldn't read it except a skim every few months.
I wouldn't read it at all.
(If we create net.peace we should create net.war for the rest of us :-)
--
-Lee
UUCP: {ihnp4, seismo, hplabs, decvax, arizona}!utah-cs!coller
ARPA: coller@utah-cs
<<<jenci len jiomme ziubra a ledrum>>>
Curtis Jackson
the below is my opinion -- flame at me via mail; not on the net -- I'll
read and respond.
-----------------------
Except for a few VERY radical groups, I think that most people like the
concept of peace -- the problem is that very few of them are willing to
get up off their butts and do anything about it. Therefore, the idea of
peace is not in and of itself really a debatable subject; it is a rather a
political issue in our world today.
Conclusion #1: Leave peace discussions in net.politics
There is, I also believe, widespread interest in the peace movement; wide
enough that a lot of people would like to know what is being done and what
is going on near enough to them that they could attend.
Conclusion #2: Create mod.peace with a stern moderator who only allows
announcements of upcoming events and (possibly) short,
factual news items on the outcome of prior events. It
would be a mini net.announce for peaceniks.
In the past two weeks my disk usage here on burl in /usr/spool/news has
grown a whopping 7.5 megabytes. TWO WEEKS!! I know that school is
coming in, but this has GOT to slow down.
Conclusion #3: Lauren is right -- we gotta do something to stop this
avalanche; and there is almost nothing we can do with
the current environment except moderate everything; which
none of us on the "net of the free and the modems of the
broke, er, brave" want to see. Let's do what we can to
slow this monster down gracefully. For all you peaceniks
out there -- if we can really get this diverse mass to cut
down on their Usenet traffic, think what unity a common
cause like peace could establish!!
--
The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291)
alias: Curtis Jackson ...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj
...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj
Chuq Von Rospach
>In article <7...@vortex.UUCP> lau...@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes:
>>It seems to me that the nature of the network is such that it can
>>only really sustain a certain number of active contributors at any
>>one time. You can theoretically let millions of people READ the
>>materials (just like millions watch TV), but if too many people
>>are trying to send IN material, and if it ALL gets "published"
>>(that is, a non-moderated environment) then the overload is going
>>to get worse and worse, both in terms of costs (both obvious
>>and non-obvious) and in terms of information "saturation" that
>>will gradually cause more and more people to stop reading netnews.
I'll happily (unhappily?) agree with Lauren on this. The sad fact IS
that many people are overloading and are cutting back significantly on
what they read, or giving up completely. Many of these people are the
people we need most desperately to make the net work -- the technical
gurus, the intelligent, the sensitive, the core group of knowledge and
answers that the net needs to survive. I think there is a significant
brain-drain on the net, and this causes a strong negative positive
feedback cycle -- the more decent people who split, the faster the ones
left will leave because they won't have anyone interesting to talk to.
>I'm not all that familiar with the internal workings of Usenet, but it seems
>some form of moderation other than moderated newsgroups would help to curb
>traffic.
Moderation as it currently is set up turned out to be a rather unqualified
failure. With the exception of a very few groups that were essentially
moderated before (mod.map, mod.newslists, and the std crew) none of
the other moderated groups has really shown any positive functionality at
all. I just don't think there is a way to graft moderation onto the USENET
setup, unless you are willing to redefine USENET.
>What I'm suggesting is some form of quotas on traffic on a per
>site, newsgroup, or user basis. In short, a site, newsgroup, or user would
>be allowed to post only so much in a given time period, and then no more.
>Given this kind of advance information, network flow and transmission costs
>could be predicted. Administration of quotas would be left up to the site.
Leaving the censorship issues out (and I don't think they are significant)
I don't see how something like this can be implemented in terms of the
current net. You have something like 2000 sites out there, running both
netnews and notes, and there are multitudes of versions of each out there
as well. Even assuming that you could come up with a workable plan and get
it installed in both news and notes (ignoring for now the unique stuff out
there as well) and get it installed in the standard releases, they would
only end up being valid on the sites willing to upgrade to those releases
(and, I might add, sites whose SA upgrades without simply commenting out
the code or raising the limits or something). This isn't something that can
be dealt with reasonably once it leaves the local site, and that makes
implementation real difficult. Also, would a single company with a gateway
to 1000 workstations get quota for 1000 sites or one?
Also keep in mind that getting the software written, debugged, and into a
new release of news is a time consuming project. I've pointed out this fact
before and I don't want to go into deathly detail again, but if we had a
design today, and if we had a volunteer force of programmers today, and if
we could all agree to do it, it would still be a year to 18 months before
anyone would see it in a standard release of news, and another year to 18
months before 50% of the network had upgraded to that version of news (this
ignores any implementation for notes, too). We're now into 1987, more or
less, with less than a 50% penetration. Do we really HAVE until 1987 before
this net implodes?
I think the major design flaw in USENET is that it has always been designed
to be easy to post. We've added lots of ways to make it easier to get stuff
onto the network, to include parent articles, to get our words out into the
ether. (This is because it is very important to get your words out where
everyone can revel in them, and I'm one of the most guilty on this...) What
we really ought to have done, and should do in the future, is make it as
easy as possible to read (and trash) news as possible, to help the reader
get through the trash as efficiently as possible. Rn is the first positive
step I've seen in this direction in a long time, but from a design
standpoint I think it has some serious drawbacks. I've got some ideas
on the whole situation, but frankly, they aren't USENET, and if they ever
see the light of day they may not be compatibile with USENET. I think
USENET as it currently stands is a dinosaur with the head cut off, with the
hindbrain lumbering through its paces, waiting for the collapse. Its
probably time to start looking at what we do next. It isn't USENET, it
isn't mailing lists, it isn't anything we have now. We can make use of what
we have but its time to stop being hindered by it.
--
Chuq Von Rospach nsc!chu...@decwrl.ARPA {decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!chuqui
Son, you're mixing ponderables again
Lauren Weinstein
trying to moderate everything in the current environment. But we
can at least try moderation for new groups that have a high volume
potential if people are going to INSIST that such groups be created.
Ideally, we'd avoid the creation of new groups (high or low volume)
unless really necessary under some established criteria.
It occurs to me that one possibility to help decide whether or not
a group should be created (only one factor, there are many others to be
considered as well) might be the following:
Perhaps we shouldn't really care about how many absolute votes
a newsgroup creation proposal gets. After all, as we've discovered,
SOMEBODY will vote for any topic -- getting 20 or 30 or 50 people
to say YES isn't hard. But few people who don't care about the topic
will bother to vote NO -- they'll just ignore the whole discussion
instead. So new groups keep getting created, even when inappropriate.
Perhaps one factor in deciding to create a new group should be
whether or not the number of SITES (forget individual voters) who
had at least one person vote YES exceeds a certain percentage of the
total sites on the net. Each site would only really get one vote
under this system, since each site only needs to get one copy
of any given article.
With some work, we might be able to determine thresholds above
which netnews distribution make sense, and below which mailing
lists make sense. As the net grows, however, it is more and
more obvious that we have to take the overall size of the net
into account when making these decisions. 50 people was a lot
in the early days of the net. Now, it's just a drop in the bucket.
--Lauren--
John Donovan
John: I think we see eye to eye regarding net.peace. Usenet is both
Use-ful and entertaining largely because it appeals to people with
interests that extend beyond their everyday involvement with computers.
I've had to rethink my earlier suggestion that net.peace might be a
practical organizing tool; it will very likely attract too much flack
from net.politics flamers for that to be a realizable goal. As a
forum for exchanging ideas re. peace, politics, and peace proposals,
I think it is an excellent idea.
Opening up Usenet (and especially net.peace) to people who might not
normally have access to the networking capabilities is
an exciting idea. Your offer of access is very well taken. I hear
that The WELL is about to sign a contract with Uninet that would make
it easily accessible from all around the country. Even one such node
would make all the difference as far as increased public access.
My mail has been running heavily in favor of starting net.peace.
[I will be happy to verify that to doubters, of whom there seem to
be some out thers.] How does one go about calling the question?
Henry Schaffer
> all groups that might desire to "piggyback" their operations onto the
> --Lauren--
Perhaps these groups do not realize how easily they could us
ordinary bulletin board/telephone call technology to serve their
needs. (An inexpensive hard disk pc, remote bulletin board software,
a 1200/300 modem, and a phone line - let people call in during low
rate times if they want to economize.)
It would be a fully appropriate use of USENET (in my opinion) to
have someone post an article in, e.g., net.politics, giving the
telephone number of such a system for the information of all USENET
readers.
The right-wing-hate-groups apparently have had such systems going
for some time. Certainly the peace groups could do the same- and
get something done without all the debate ... over USENET.
--henry schaffer
William Martin
install a limit of "number of characters posted per user-ID" or "number
of postings per day per user-ID" or the like, in order to reduce network
traffic. (I recall seeing many such comments over the past years, and
they never inspired anyone to actually implement the idea.) However,
just in case somebody decides to assign this as a class project or
something and it really gets done, let me mention one factor (one which
clouds many aspect of net usage): reliability.
Not all net users operate on hosts or with connections that have high
reliability. Some have to take advantage of [shall we say] "openings",
when the net is up and news is flowing, to read new news and post a lot
of things that have been simmering in their minds or are inspired by the
just-read news items. Then, they will seemingly vanish for days or
weeks, simply because their news feed is down, or one up the stream is
down. Keep this in mind when designing any algorithms to limit traffic
per person. Assign a long-enough time period to take into account these
inevitable surges and troughs; maybe two weeks or a month, and have your
software calculate the total number of characters posted over that whole
period, not just per that day or that uucp connection.
Also, it would be well to use "number of characters" as the determining
factor, not "number of postings" or other counts. If this is done, and
well-publicized, it can also contribute to eliminating the glut of
"included text" in postings, if everyone knows that including 3500
characters of Joe Blow's ramblings on wombats just to add "Amen,
brother!" on the end will subtract 3500+ characters from his or her own
allotment.
Will
John Donovan
with them. As for the objection that net.peace would "degenerate"
to a parallel of net.policics, what do you mean by "degenerate"?
If you mean it will embody a heated exchange of ideas, then so be it;
I see that as a healthy use for the net. As far as duplicating some
information in net.politics, it would take discussion off of that
group and transfer it to a subgroup, if you will. there would be
a substantial transfer effect that would offset much of the increased traffic.
I believe this has happened with other split-off groups. Do you want to
avoid this effect and allow the traffic on net.politics to make it even
more congested?
I agree that the net has a problem with traffic levels. There is a simple
solution, however: each node can unsubscribe to newsgroups in which it
has no interest. If everyone actually did this, it would relieve the storage
problems by a large order of magnitude. I would hate to see net.peace be made
the whipping boy for a larger problem that needs to be addressed.
The implicit question is, when do you start locking out new groups? It seems
to me that the net has been quite democratic so far, and that the diversity
of groups is a function of the diverse interests of net members. Groups
that don't interest anyone die out; groups that interest members should be
allowed to bloom. Diversity is the measure of health of any organism, both
here and in nature.
As far as not letting other prople on the net, that raises a problem that
is more dangerous than anything that I have proposed. Where do you
draw the line while maintaining some principles of fairness? More to the
point, WHO draws the line? If members want to see a new group, then
I think it should be allowed to happen.
John Donovan
> Why not use mod.politics (the moderator is James Armstrong Jr. (nyssa@abnji)).
> I think that this is the apropriate group for this subject. So far this group
> has been unused (I have only seen one posting on this machine.).
>
will be aware of its existence. If it is to serve some function, then
let's be up front about it.
> I wouldn't read it at all.
>
You certainly don't have to. If you don't want to put up with the increased
storage, then you can unsubscribe to it. No problem. But let's at least
allow a trial for those who *would* like to see net.peace.
> (If we create net.peace we should create net.war for the rest of us :-)
>
Uh, OK with me, Lee...But just think how much fun you would miss by not
having net.peace carried live over ARPAnet!
Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX
of the rapid expansion of the net, and resulting heavy influx of new users.
This growth may slow down soon, as it is now possible to get on the net
with a fairly modest investment in Unix hardware and software. With
hardware systems capable of running some form of net news access (anything
from a $500 used PDP11 system to a hard disk PC clone running Lauren's
UUCP emulator), it seems like those who really want to get on the network
will be able to do so without too much trouble.
Development of true broadcast technology (Stargate) would allow the
incremental per article costs to be born by the submitter as he
sends it directly to the satellite uplink system, and the system may
become somewhat self regulating/limiting.
As long as we keep UUCP et al as mysterious as it is, we may spare ourselves
the Final Deluge from the masses. :-)
--
Chuck Forsberg WA7KGX ...!tektronix!reed!omen!caf CIS:70715,131
Omen Technology Inc 17505-V NW Sauvie Island Road Portland OR 97231
Voice: 503-621-3406 Modem: 503-621-3746 (Hit CR's for speed detect)
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Home of Professional-YAM, the most powerful COMM program for the IBM PC
William Martin
>
>Moderation as it currently is set up turned out to be a rather unqualified
>failure. With the exception of a very few groups that were essentially
>moderated before (mod.map, mod.newslists, and the std crew) none of
>the other moderated groups has really shown any positive functionality at
>all. I just don't think there is a way to graft moderation onto the USENET
>setup, unless you are willing to redefine USENET.
>
mod.rec.guns is working just fine, and I would call it a success.
It might be a special case, being a topic of high interest to a number
of people, and in great danger of attack by the forces of the enemy
(that is, anti-gunners), so it can ONLY exist under the umbrella of
moderation. Nonetheless, its success does contradict the statement above.
Will
Chuq Von Rospach
>I really think it is unlikely that any real effort will be made to
>install a limit of "number of characters posted per user-ID" or "number
>of postings per day per user-ID" or the like, in order to reduce network
>traffic. (I recall seeing many such comments over the past years, and
>they never inspired anyone to actually implement the idea.)
Well, limits on a per-user or a per-site basis can't work unless they
are implemented at the posting site (which simply won't be done at the
sites that need it most, of course). What can be done is a batching scheme
I'm playing with for NNTN (Not Neccessarily The Net), a replacement for USENET
I'm fooling with in my copious free time.
Currently, batching is done with the F flag, which causes a file to be
generated where each line of the file is the filename to a message that
needs to be transmitted (/usr/spool/news/net/flame/1134267, for instance).
When the batching is done, this file is used to generate the batches in the
order of the lines in the file.
I'm thinking of changing the batching procedure to include some kind of
newsgroup priority. Each newsgroup would have a priority of, say, A-F, set
up in some undefined way. When the batching is done, it is done starting
with the high (A) priority and working its way down until a specific
maximum volume is reached. When that happens, batching stops, and stuff
that was of lower priority is simply deferred until the next day.
This will put a hard limit on the total amount of volume shipped across
over any specific time period while at the same time guaranteeing that the
groups of greatest importance get sent. The lower priority groups get
deferred until volume slacks off a bit, and if they expire before they get
sent out, well, too bad. This gives a site the ability to control its
phone bills to a much greater extent than is currently possible, and it
allows the stuff the net is really here for to move around while still
allowing the 'fun' stuff, space allowing.
I would hope, of course, that the net would agree on a priority schedule
and size limitations, but the reality is that some sites would change
things around to suit themselves and (hopefully) their downstream sites,
which si fine by me. If net.games is more important to my site than
net.motss, then I bump net.motss down net.games up and net.motss down.
This gives an SA a much better excuse for management when asked to justify
costs, because the 'secondary' groups only come in when under the limit. It
gives you a better chance to budget your phone bill and resources, and
depending on the complexity of the priority scheme (I would hope there
would be some way for the downstream site to automatically install it on
their upstream neighbors) can give you great flexibility. One thing I
seriously propose, BTW, is that priority for a given message be set up to
be the lowest applicable of the priorities, not the highest. It might also
be possible to use this instead of the sys file for turning off groups (and
rogue users and sites?) by simpyl defining a special priority '0' to turn
it off completely.
It looks like a fairly straightforward enhancement of the current system,
but I haven't really worked out the details. Feel free to make comments...
--
Chuq Von Rospach nsc!chu...@decwrl.ARPA {decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!chuqui
An uninformed opinion is no opinion at all. If you dont know what you're
talking about, please try to do it quietly.
Lauren Weinstein
Usenet netnews massively. People are starting to gateway in from other
networks running all sorts of software on all sorts of systems.
Cross-network links are already appearing left and right, and
I've seen several more proposed recently.
I see nothing to indicate other than continued explosive growth until
the load becomes so great that people start dropping off in large
numbers, or until hubs start cutting back on the netnews materials they
are willing to transmit.
We're no longer dealing with a single network here--Usenet is
a hub that a variety of networks pour into, and as such we're
seeing traffic and growth that is the union of many different
nets.
--Lauren--
Gene Spafford
nonapproved, outside groups. If net.peace was created as a forum for
"peace" groups to communicate and organize, I would be breaking state
law (as it is interpreted here) to carry or forward such a group.
Additionally, some such "peace" groups that might wish a voice on such
a group often promulgate actions which are illegal. Thus, providing
the group with this foreknowledge could be seen as conspiracy, should
some overzealous type wish to pursue such an avenue of prosecution
(don't laugh -- I had to swear out a loyalty oath to uphold the US and
Georgia state consititutions in order to get paid. *Every* grad student
(and faculty too, I think) has to do that here. In the 1980s.). With
these points in mind, if there is overwhelming demand for such a group,
I will not carry it here.
I imagine that any other public educational institution and government
sponsored site is under the same or similar restrictions. Could *any*
site funded by a Federal agency legally carry the group? I doubt it.
I certainly know that the group isn't worth our finding out.
Corporate sites probably would be against it too, if someone of
sufficient authority were told of the plan.
I think the idea is unworkable and although the goals are laudable,
Usenet is not the place to do it. Start a separate net or mailing
list, if you wish. Just describe a new distribution (call it peace or
whatever) and call the other sites interested in being part of such a
network. Foot your own costs and deal with the legal liabilities, if
you are interested, but don't drag the rest of the net into it.
--
Gene "3 months and counting" Spafford
The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!spaf
El Magnifico Kaufman
>In article <32...@nsc.UUCP> chu...@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
>>
>>Moderation as it currently is set up turned out to be a rather unqualified
>>I just don't think there is a way to graft moderation onto the USENET
>>setup, unless you are willing to redefine USENET.
>>
>While I hesitate to challenge an expert in this, let me mention that
>mod.rec.guns is working just fine, and I would call it a success.
existed parallel unmoderated groups? Posting to a moderated group is
(or at least can be) somewhat of a hassle, and doesn't have the instant
gratification of posting to an unmoderated group and then immediately
reading one's own message.
Of course, eliminating net.singles in favor of mod.singles (or whatever)
would have caused even more uproar than just creating mod.singles did.
Is leaving the unmoderated groups around what you meant by not "redefining
USENET," Chuq?
Qux
Kaufma...@Yale-Comix.Arpa Kau...@YaleCS.Bitnet ..!decvax!yale!kaufman
John Donovan
traffic problem that Lauren and you are chafing about. My local
unix gurus took me aside and explained how the good citizens of
the net have been passing along news to their downstream neighbors
for years; and that if they take my advise and "unsubscribe," the
net will be all over. Allow me to apologise for my ignorance
instead of demonstrating it much further.
Chuq, I share your aversion to moderating groups. Those groups
where it would have the biggest impact on traffic are those that
are the most interesting. It would impose a dead hand on free form
discussions.
How about a bandaid solution?: Removing those groups that show
minimal activity for a certain period of time--say, a month. Or,
you could hold a popularity contest for a month, with members
voting for their favorite groups; at the end of which time the lowest
ranking 1/3 (or so) of the groups would be dropped.
This suggestion would primarily impact those groups with the
lowest traffic levels, limiting its effectiveness. In addition, there
would be a transfer effect, as members of terminated groups carry
on their discussions on existing groups. To the extent that this
transfer effect didn't take place, the solution would help.
This is a limited suggestion, but I would like to hear your thoughts.
Best regards/John
--
----
... John Donovan, MicroPro Technical Communications
{dual,ptsfa,hplabs}!well!micropro!kepler!jpd
Phil Ngai
>It is against Georgia state law to provide University services to
>nonapproved, outside groups. If net.peace was created as a forum for
>"peace" groups to communicate and organize, I would be breaking state
>law (as it is interpreted here) to carry or forward such a group.
>Additionally, some such "peace" groups that might wish a voice on such
>a group often promulgate actions which are illegal. Thus, providing
>the group with this foreknowledge could be seen as conspiracy, should
>some overzealous type wish to pursue such an avenue of prosecution
If net.peace were created under such auspices, we would not be able to
carry it either. I would be forced to automatically "junk" all such
articles. Try a mailing list. With direct UUCP links, preferably.
--
A hacker is someone who orders Sweet and Sour Bitter Melon just because
it is "an impossible combination".
Phil Ngai (408) 749-5720
UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil
ARPA: amdcad!ph...@decwrl.ARPA
Shane P. McCarron
>on this net, since none of us pays the full cost for distributing
>our message throughout the network. We may pay a little for the
>initial sending of the message... but after that it vanishes
>into the abyss of the net and is paid for by virtually everyone.
If you think about the economics of the situation, you will realize
that no one on the net is really a "freeloader". Sure, you only pay
for the initial cost of each message you send; but you also pay for
the intermediate or final costs for everyone else. In this way you
are paying for the full trip of your message. One might say that
sites that only receive partial feeds are "freeloading", since they
are not supporting the costs of all the material they aren't getting.
However, there aren't that many partial feeds, and they don't feed
other people anyway.
--
Shane P. McCarron
Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation - Technical Services
UUCP ihnp4!dicomed!meccts!ahby
Larry Campbell
> I think the idea is unworkable and although the goals are laudable,
> Usenet is not the place to do it. Start a separate net or mailing
> list, if you wish. Just describe a new distribution (call it peace or
> whatever) and call the other sites interested in being part of such a
> network. Foot your own costs and deal with the legal liabilities, if
> you are interested, but don't drag the rest of the net into it.
> --
> Gene "3 months and counting" Spafford
> The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
> CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA
> uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!spaf
This idea is so good and so obvious, I feel foolish for not having
thought of it myself. By using a new distribution, we can use the
already-written USENET software, without dragging in sites that might
(justifiably) get offended enough to drop all USENET traffic.
I am a strong supporter of action (including illegal action) to stop
the arms race and the destruction of the environment, but recognize
that a net.peace group would be a very bad idea on USENET. Gene's
suggestion gives a very viable alternative.
If USENET is defined as all sites that get net.announce, we could define
PEACENET as all sites that get peace.announce (say). All we need is a set
of sites willing to forward peace.all to each other. I can volunteer
my site for forwarding such news in the Boston/Cambridge and Maynard (Mass.)
areas.
Any other sites interested in forming a `peace' distribution? Of course,
this means no free ride on the backbone. Volunteer sites will likely have
some real long-distance phone charges to deal with. But if the idea catches
on it might be possible to get funding from some of the more established
peace groups (Center for Defense Information, AFSC, Mobilization for Survival,
etc.)
--
Larry Campbell decvax!genrad
The Boston Software Works, Inc. \
120 Fulton St. seismo!harvard!wjh12!maynard!campbell
Boston MA 02109 / /
ihnp4 cbosgd
ARPA: campbell%maynar...@harvard.arpa
Chuq Von Rospach
>>>failure. ...
>>>I just don't think there is a way to graft moderation onto the USENET
>>>setup, unless you are willing to redefine USENET.
>>>
>>While I hesitate to challenge an expert in this, let me mention that
>>mod.rec.guns is working just fine, and I would call it a success.
>
>Might it be that the reason most moderated groups failed was that there
>existed parallel unmoderated groups?
I don't follow mod.rec.guns, so I can't say for certainty, but the only
places where I've seen any kind of success for moderated groups are groups
that have no unmoderated counterpart -- things like mod.map, net.announce,
stuff that essentially has to be moderated or has always been moderated. I
don't see how you can move from unmoderated to moderated in the existing
environment (a good argument against mod.bizarre -- the track record shows
it won't work...)
>Is leaving the unmoderated groups around what you meant by not "redefining
>USENET," Chuq?
The unmoderated groups (and the anarchy thereof) are the heart and soul of
USENET. Anything that mucks with that mucks with USENET. I think it is
really better to consider mod.all as a separate subnet rather than a
different part of USENET -- the same has been true for fa.all for a long
time, the only difference is that fa.all is ARPA based and mod.all is .UUCP
based. fa.all and mod.all simply aren't USENET, they just happen to use the
same transmission media.
There are probably a good number of groups that would be well served to
move into a moderated environment. These are likely the groups that would
also be most useful on stargate or some similar form of network
transmission (net.unix-wizards is top on that list, so is net.lang.c).
There are just as many groups that would probably wither and die under
moderation.
We might want to consider a two pronged approach. First, find out which
groups ought to be moderated and move them there (removing the unmoderated
group in its wake -- I don't think there is any way for both to survive).
Second, find ways to help readers parse the junk out of the groups that
aren't moderated. I'm playing with this now, but I'm not ready to talk
about it beyond saying that I'm taking the user interface to the bare
ground (and possibly beyond) and trying to build it back again. I may find
something that works, it may fail miserably. Either way, I'm not sure it'll
be USENET anymore. It'll hopefully have the advantages of USENET without
many of the problems.
--
Chuq Von Rospach nsc!chu...@decwrl.ARPA {decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!chuqui
An uninformed opinion is no opinion at all. If you dont know what you're
Chuq Von Rospach
>that no one on the net is really a "freeloader". Sure, you only pay
>for the initial cost of each message you send; but you also pay for
>the intermediate or final costs for everyone else. In this way you
>are paying for the full trip of your message. One might say that
>sites that only receive partial feeds are "freeloading", since they
>are not supporting the costs of all the material they aren't getting.
>However, there aren't that many partial feeds, and they don't feed
>other people anyway.
Uh, hmm.... Someone seems to have forgotten the concept of a long distance
phone call. There is so much illogic in this posting I'm not quite sure how
to deal with it.
IF everyone was on something like the ARPA net, then I'd agree with some of
those statements. The second you have phone links with unequal cost it goes
to pot. You're telling me that a leaf site that brings news into itself
and doesn't send it anywhere else is an equal partner with a site like
hplabs, which has three feeds to three different geographic areas
(Tektronix, sdcrdcf, and hao) and feeds something like seven local sites.
Give me a break. How do you equate a local phone call being equivalent to
the million dollar a year phone bill at decvax?
The reality of the situation is that a few large and generous sites are
spending a lot of money supporing a large number of small sites (I recently
coined the term parasite, but I'll avoid the pun this time) who make only
local phone calls, who don't pass along news to anyone else, and who seem
to think that the net really is magic, or free, or something.
Oh, another illogic is that partial feeds are the freeloaders, and that
there aren't many. Some major geographic areas (europe, british columbia,
and australia) ALL take only partial feeds for cost reasons. There are a
lot more partial sites than you might expect, and it is a growing reality
that the net is becoming increasingly unwilling to tolerate the garbage
that is propogating.
some rea
Mark Horton
>groups are groups that have no unmoderated counterpart -- things like
>mod.map, net.announce, stuff that essentially has to be moderated or
>has always been moderated.
net.announce has net.general as an unmoderated counterpart which failed
its original charter (announcements and queries that were important enough
for the whole net to read.) mod.sources still has net.sources as an
unmoderated counterpart, and I consider mod.sources successful. Also,
mod.map was originally net.news.map, although that group was effectively
moderated also. mod.unix has net.unix-wizards as a counterpart.
It can be done - there are lots of success stories.
>The unmoderated groups (and the anarchy thereof) are the heart and soul of
>USENET. Anything that mucks with that mucks with USENET. I think it is
>really better to consider mod.all as a separate subnet rather than a
>different part of USENET -- the same has been true for fa.all for a long
>time, the only difference is that fa.all is ARPA based and mod.all is .UUCP
>based. fa.all and mod.all simply aren't USENET, they just happen to use the
>same transmission media.
It's true that mod has a different character than the original Usenet.
Let's recall what that original character was. It consisted entirely
of technical discussions, announcements, and queries. Lately the net
has been snowed under by nontechnical newsgroups which are busting the
disks, CPU's, phone bills, and reading time of large numbers of people.
This is not "Usenet" either, it's "Talk Net".
Perhaps it's time to move those nontechnical discussions to another
distribution group or groups as well.
Mark Horton