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From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: Article on Computer Message Systems
Message-ID: <2958@nsc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Jul-85 14:44:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: nsc.2958
Posted: Wed Jul 10 14:44:33 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 12-Jul-85 04:17:07 EDT
References: <6257@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Reply-To: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach)
Organization: The Dreamer Fithp
Lines: 68
Summary: 

In article <6257@ucla-cs.ARPA> reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP writes:
>Those interested in the ongoing debate on how Usenet should evolve (Stargate,
>nuking net.flame, moderated newsgroups, kicking sites off the net, newsgroup
>proliferation (hi rlr!), etc.) might find an article in the most recent 
>Communications of the ACM (July 85) interesting.  The article is titled 
>"Structuring Computer-Mediated Communications Systems to Avoid Information
>Overload", by Starr Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff.

I second the nomination. Well thought out and an interesting perspective.
They thought things out a lot more than Denning did in his discussion of
Electronic mail a few years ago.

>                                                     The systems they discuss
>are slightly different from Usenet, but most of their observations apply.

Actually, their system is significantly different from Usenet. The
observations work to some degree, but there are changes that need to be
kept in mind.

    o It is geographically restricted

The geographical restrictions means they don't need to worry about the
phone bill and cost issue of transporting data from one place to another.
If I didn't have to pay (and justify) phone bills, I'd be on their side
about letting the user filter things his way. I believe that anyway, as
long as my phone costs stay reasonable.

    o the system discussed doesn't have the multi-organizational
      structure of USENET -- it seems to be under the complete control
      of the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

    o It seems to be designed to run under homogenous hardware and
      software.

These two points have a lot of ramifications. If you are under a single
organizational structure, you have control to make sure that software is
kept up to date and bug free. You have a known organizational structure
to take care of problems (both technological and rogue user). The
homogenous hardware/software lets you build a system that takes advantage
of what you have instead of worrying about being compatible to 30 different
things and using the lowest common denominator.

>If I
>read correctly, they would oppose removing a group like net.flame or preventing
>certain people/sites from posting.

That seems to be an appropriate assumption, but I also would like to point
out they don't need to worry about phone bills and they have significantly
better filtering mechanisms than we do -- keyword support, moderators, and
many other things that simply haven't been implemented or used to any great
extent on USENET. It happens to be quite difficult to filter out unwanted
messages (even with rn) effectively right now because the information
people need to do that filtering isn't easily accessible.

>The article seems to me particularly well timed, and I urge interested parties
>to read and interpret it for themselves.

Yes, find it and read it. It helps give a perception of what we can do with
USENET. But it isn't USENET, and some of their arguments don't translate
cleanly.

chuq
-- 
:From the misfiring synapses of:                  Chuq Von Rospach
{cbosgd,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui   nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

Admirals, extoll'd for standing still, 
Or doing nothing with a deal of skill.		-- William Cowper