Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site im4u.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!ut-sally!im4u!jsq From: jsq@im4u.UUCP (John Quarterman) Newsgroups: net.news.group Subject: Re: net.internat -- A solution proposal Message-ID: <602@im4u.UUCP> Date: Sun, 27-Oct-85 13:11:55 EST Article-I.D.: im4u.602 Posted: Sun Oct 27 13:11:55 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 29-Oct-85 04:39:34 EST References: <1704@gatech.CSNET> Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas Lines: 145 Spaf mentioned my name: > -- Mod groups present a better opportunity for "official" contacts > (e.g., mod.std.unix and John Quarterman) should any formal standards > organization wish to take part in the discussions. so I'm going to make a few comments. Major points listed at the outset: Net.internat should exist in some form; the traffic is demonstrated, if the original EUUG mandate wasn't enough. It should be moderated; the verbosity and repetition in the net group is sufficient demonstration. There are precedents for outside organizations mandating newsgroups. Deleting net.internat was Real Bad Idea regardless of its ugly name and it not having been created according to the rules. The name net.internat is really ugly and incredibly unfortunate. What the name of the newsgroup should be. The first point needs no further elaboration. Spaf has given most of the arguments for moderation of the newsgroup, but there are still a few other things worth mentioning. Some have complained that they will have to pay twice: once to mail a submission to the moderator, and again to receive it. (If I understand correctly, most UUCP links in Europe run over X.25 links supplied by the government postal and telephone departments, so that every message is paid for individually.) Well, if you post one message in ten of those which appear in the newsgroup, you will have to pay ten per cent extra. If it's not worth that to you, maybe you shouldn't post. If you were planning on posting a higher percentage than that, maybe you should think twice about whether you really have that much to say, or whether you could say it more concisely. Spaf called for volunteers to moderate mod.std.international, thinking that no one has volunteered before. It's not so. I volunteered at the outset of the original discussion about net.internat (yes, Virginia, there was discussion, though much of it took place by mail) to funnel the net.internat traffic through mod.std.unix. (Though I have enough trouble keeping up with the small traffic already in mod.std.unix.) I also pointed out that there was no real reason that there couldn't be another moderator in Europe to avoid the problem of having to mail submissions across an ocean. Since spaf tells me that he now has several other volunteers in N.A. for moderator, I withdraw myself. Ut-sally isn't a backbone site, and we don't have the telephone bills of a backbone site. However, the amount of CPU cycles and disk space USENET eats up on that machine (and im4u) are not inconsiderable. I sympathize completely with the backbone administrators who are trying to keep their load from growing to the point they can't afford to support it (we couldn't pay for their present loads: that's why we're not a backbone site). All you who are flaming spaf might consider that he's not Young Hitler out to take over the net; he's just trying to preserve what there is and maybe improve on it. You may not like his methods (I may not like them either) and he may make mistakes, but he's well intentioned, and he does listen to reason (though not to flaming very well). To you in Europe who proposed the newsgroup: have a heart! Moderate it, and pick a better name. Like mod.unix.international or mod.std.international. Several people have written that mandates from outside organizations have nothing to do with newsgroup creation on USENET. Well, mod.std.unix is an example of a newsgroup which does in fact exist because it was mandated by a group outside of USENET: the IEEE/P1003 Portable Operating System Environment Committee, with collaboration by the USENIX board. There was little or no prior demonstrated traffic. There was *no* public discussion in net.news.group. So far as I know the only discussion directly related to USENET was in the moderators mailing list and private mail. You may say "but that's a moderated newsgroup, and besides we don't do it that way even for them anymore." What about net.usenix? Doesn't fit into a rational naming scheme, has very little traffic, what there has been of late has been mostly about skiing: thus low signal to noise ratio. I hear no one calling for deletion of that newsgroup, or asking if it was created properly. Could it be because USENIX is its de facto sponsor? Even if there were no precedents, it is downright rude and insulting to EUUG to ignore their call for a newsgroup. It is true that net.internat is an incredibly ugly name, but is "mod.std" any prettier? It is true that the proposers of the newsgroup did not follow the letter of the rules for creating newsgroups. However, this ain't net.bizarre we're discussing: it's a world-wide technical newsgroup of the sort that I, at least, think USENET should support. (I don't say that we shouldn't have non-technical newsgroups. I've helped create a couple myself (ones which mostly stick to their intended subjects). But posting or reading news is *not* a right, especially if you don't pay for it, and you cannot expect other people to pay for endless drivel like net.bizarre. The bulk of transmissions does matter. The signal to noise ratio does matter. (This is, of course, the main reason it should be moderated, not net.internat.)) Deleting the existing newsgroup before establishing a replacement was a Real Bad Move, especially when the people in EUUG behind it had demonstrated their amenability to reason (by their agreement in public in net.internat that they hadn't completely followed the rules). Were all the backbone site administrators who made the decision in North America? Were even any Canadians consulted? Not to mention Europeans, Japanese, Koreans, and Australians? If this was a purely U.S. decision, you backbone site administrators deserve all the invective you've gotten from Europe. Sure, you bear the brunt of the costs of the network (at least on this continent), and you *can* do it. Without even consulting anyone overseas. But have you never been overseas? Do you know nothing of American history? Do you not understand that it's exactly that sort of thinking and practice that makes the rest of the world view the United States with such ambivalence, if not outright contempt? The newsgroup name net.internat is not appropriate, because it should be a mod group, and it should not be a top level group. The traffic in net.internat to date indicates that many people are not interested soley in discussing internationalization of UNIX. So spaf's idea of mod.std.international would be appropriate. Someone who was at the EUUG BOF where the newsgroup was mandated points out that it was intended to be specifically about internationalization of UNIX. That considered, mod.unix.international would be better. Even that ridiculous abbreviation mod.unix.intnl would be better than net.internat. The insistence of others that it be called whatever.internat makes me wonder if they've never seen the word "internet", and, if so, why don't they realize how easy it is to confuse their made-up word with the other, real, one? If the idea was to limit the length of the name to fourteen characters or less, I say let everyone update their software. Four years since B news 2.9 is long enough. So. I applaud spaf's proposal for mod.std.international. He has compromised somewhat. EUUG have compromised by proposing net.unix.intnl. Let's split the difference and call it mod.unix.international. Credentials. Some people have been going on about how if you haven't contributed to the upkeep of USENET, you shouldn't verbalize in public about it. I wrote uuhosts, which is used to display information from mod.map. It's not pathalias or uucp, but some people find it useful. I also run a system which distributes news to a couple dozen others, and I moderate a newsgroup. -- John Quarterman, UUCP: {ihnp4,seismo,harvard,gatech}!ut-sally!jsq ARPA Internet and CSNET: jsq@sally.UTEXAS.EDU, formerly jsq@ut-sally.ARPA