Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mimsy!mangoe From: mangoe@mimsy.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: news.misc,news.admin Subject: Re: Governing bodies Message-ID: <7358@mimsy.UUCP> Date: Tue, 7-Jul-87 23:26:04 EDT Article-I.D.: mimsy.7358 Posted: Tue Jul 7 23:26:04 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 10-Jul-87 07:23:15 EDT References: <6875@e.ms.uky.edu> <139@hippo.UUCP> Organization: U of Maryland, Dept. of Computer Science, Coll. Pk., MD 20742 Lines: 38 Summary: One big problem isn't solved Xref: mnetor news.misc:719 news.admin:648 Eric Bergan writes, concerning backbone membership on the proposed BoD: > Agreed. But what is the likelihood of success if the "major" >sites don't abide by the decisions, since they didn't have a voice >in the policy making? (There seem to be some informed people on the >net that feel the backbone is not as important as it once was - is >this really the case? If so, why all the concern over the policies that >the backbone sites want to institute?) Well, this seems to me to indicate that a BoD doesn't solve anything. If the backbone is going to do what it wants, then why not simply name the principals there as the BoD? After all, it can hardly be expected that they should be obligated to stay on the net if the BoD tells them to do something which they don't want to do. I've disagreed with various aspects of recent "backbone cabal" actions (and it would be nice to see the net restructured so that the "backbone" were not so concentrated, but this isn't going to happen). But really, they have the right to control what goes through their sites, and therefore they effectively will hold most of the power over what happens. Perhaps some sort of advisory group to represent the views of non-backbone sites is desirable. In a sense, we already have this, though, in groups like the ones in which you are reading this article. One thing that would help is numbers that show news traffic in proportion to other net traffic, such as the mail. A while back someone at Berkeley (?) indicated that they had and 8-to-1 proportion of mail to news. If this is really true, then we're barking up the wrong tree in many respects. In general, the lack of accurate information that everyone believes in is a more important damper on rational decision making than having an advisory board. If the arbitron figures are correct, then obviously the mechanisms now in place for adminstering the net are not adequate in many ways, primarily because nobody is paying attention even to the point of reading the right newsgroups. THis is a problem which an advisory board will simply whitewash over. If we don't really know what is happening on the net, how can anyone make an intelligent decision on what to do? C. Wingate