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From: greenber@timeinc.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg)
Newsgroups: net.flame,net.news
Subject: Re: Is anyone else offended.....
Message-ID: <278@timeinc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 6-Jul-85 15:24:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: timeinc.278
Posted: Sat Jul  6 15:24:41 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 7-Jul-85 05:38:45 EDT
References: <266@timeinc.UUCP> <1106@mnetor.UUCP>
Reply-To: greenber@timeinc.UUCP (Ross M. Greenberg)
Followup-To: net.news
Organization: Time, Inc. - New York
Lines: 72
Xref: watmath net.flame:11012 net.news:3583
Summary: 

In article <1106@mnetor.UUCP> clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis) writes:
(Quotes me)
>>...
>>I feel that a SA should only control their machine.  They shouldn't
>>try to control what *I* read.
>
>I am ONLY trying to control OUR machine.  
>
>But, we're running out of disk space, CPU cycles, modem bandwidth, and
>the telephone bills are going up.  Not to mention that nobody
>down-stream of us would particularly miss net.flame and some of the
>other newsgroups either.

Let us assume for a moment that I am the system administrator at
ihnp4 or any other backbone site.  And I don't program in anything
but COBOL.  So there is obviously no need for net.lang.c, right?

You talk about how the net is a public service and that sites have
no responsibility to anyone but themselves. WRONG! We are a community.
We have our problems, our joys (Lets have congrats for Yet Another Net
Engagement to Gregg and Karen!), our problems --- and our responsibilities.

One of those responsibilities, like taxes, is to provide for the general
welfare, even if it is not in our own personal interests.  I happen to
enjoy reading net.flame, as well as net.wobegon.  The message traffic
in net.flame seems, by itself, to justify the existance of net.flame.
If SA's feel that they can't afford the space, cycles, or other limited
resources, then we should work on solving the problem --- not merely
postponing it.  Eventually we are going to hit enough message traffic
that machines won't be able to handle even the technical groups.

I think that many of the SA's are using the idea of "heavy burden" as
a vehicle for removing net.flame.   Net.flame might be an embarrasment to
many, but I still feel that a site DOES have a responsibility to other
sites dowstream to continue feeding them ALL groups.  If you decide
that you don't want to carry one group, then I feel the SA that is
pulling the plug should arrange to have downstream sites fed by
other sites.  Makes it a little more work to pull the plug on a group,
so SA's might think twice about pulling the plug on a group that they
don't want.

>
>Netnews is a public service, brought to most free by SA's that put in
>long hours of unpaid overtime to keep the whole thing from falling
>apart and companies that pay the bills.  We do it primarily for the
>technical material and partially for mail access to the world, and
>sometimes for some light entertainment.  But, the cost of carrying
>material that is at best in poor taste, and frequently legally
>actionable is getting MUCH too high.  Management is starting to put
>pressure on too.
>
As for justifying it to management --- howzabout telling management
that as a member of the USENET community, you have the responsibility
to *at least* transfer ALL newsgroups (whether they are needed/wanted or not)
in order to get the ones that you need/want?

BTW ---- I would be interested in finding out what the actual, real
costs of a group like net.flame are.  I mean, are we talking $10 or $1000?

>Chris Lewis,
>UUCP: {allegra, linus, ihnp4}!utzoo!mnetor!clewis

Ross

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------
Ross M. Greenberg  @ Time Inc, New York 
              --------->{ihnp4 | vax135}!timeinc!greenber<---------

I highly doubt that Time Inc. they would make me their spokesperson.