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From: woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group,net.flame
Subject: Re: Fear and Loathing on the Clouds
Message-ID: <1831@hao.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 29-Oct-85 16:30:21 EST
Article-I.D.: hao.1831
Posted: Tue Oct 29 16:30:21 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 31-Oct-85 09:02:13 EST
References: <614@h-sc1.UUCP> <1817@hao.UUCP> <1078@trwrdc.UUCP>
Distribution: net
Organization: High Altitude Obs./NCAR, Boulder CO
Lines: 143
Xref: linus net.news:3382 net.news.group:3425 net.flame:11628

> It strikes me as yet another example of one
> 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}
       		        !hao!woods

CSNET: woods@NCAR  ARPA: woods%ncar@CSNET-RELAY