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From: eric@hippo.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.misc,news.stargate,news.sysadmin,news.admin
Subject: Re: Governing bodies (was Re: Spaf Pro-vote / Plea for Order)
Message-ID: <139@hippo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-Jul-87 11:29:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: hippo.139
Posted: Tue Jul  7 11:29:45 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 9-Jul-87 02:36:08 EDT
References: <266@brandx.rutgers.edu> <15982@gatech.gatech.edu> <6875@e.ms.uky.edu>
Organization: HEALTHCARE 2000
Lines: 100
Keywords: Coherent Rules, Exponential Flaming
Xref: utgpu news.groups:1098 news.misc:594 news.stargate:207 news.sysadmin:248 news.admin:561

In article <6875@e.ms.uky.edu>, david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack) writes:

> This has been getting more and more and more obvious over the last year
> or so.  And the FidoNet newsletter we've been getting for the last few
> months has been helping to make it obvious.  They've been able to do
> some things we haven't been able to do, such as:
> 
> 1. Get some recognition of their unique status.  A status which we
>    happen to share.
> 2. Work with the modem manufacturers in the designing of the next
>    generation of modems.  (Both in the 2400 baud market and currently
>    in the 9600 baud market).
> 
> We could have somebody lobbying in Washington (possibly in conjunction
> with FIDOnet) in our behalf.  Especially right now with the FCC scaring
> us again about access charges.
> 
> We could put together a low-cost set of software for all Unix
> environments which supported fancy type mail and news.  (This could
> even be the sole funding for the organization if worked right).

	You are certainly taking the concept farther than I was. While
I don't necessarily disagree, you are significantly adding to the workload
of anyone on the board. Perhaps they would have sufficient extra time,
or their employers would be motivated to allow them to participate in
lobbying, etc - I just don't know.

> > [ List of possible board members ]
> This list is probably ok.  But I might want to quibble with it at some
> time in the future.  Especially, I'd like to change "representatives
> from each of the backbone sites" to "regional representatives".  This
> is because it has become much easier to gain the connectivity required
> to become a backbone site (we've got two full feeds from backbone sites
> and fit a number of other categories right now).
> [ ... ]
> In other words, the old rules don't hold as well as they used to.

	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?)

> >	Obviously, none of the decisions reached by the board would
> >force any site to do anything (except as the decisions are implemented
> >in either new versions of news software, or by the site feeding you).
> >But hopefully the decisions will be reasonable, and a greater amount
> >of light (and less heat) will be shed on the decision making process.
> hmmmmmm
> I thought this was going to be something Bold and New?  But now you're
> saying it's the same old stuff as always, but now you've got some
> elections and such rot.  Oh boy.

	How would you enforce decisions? Even if a central governing
body was set up, it seems to me that the only enforcement capability
is basically "play ball with us, or you can't play at all". Even supporting
that under the current topology is difficult, since to cut off a site,
you would have to convince everyone not to feed it. How would you
deal with an individual who is violating the rules, when the rest of
that site is not in violation? What if the villain had root on that
machine?

> We've already got an organization which would do quite nicely to be a
> governing board ... or at least to start a governing board.  That's
> Usenix.  Usenix has been funding a lot of things which are aimed at
> helping Usenet keep going.

	I believe this idea has been brought up in the past and that
the Usenix board wanted little to do with trying to "control" the
net. Has there been a change of policy?

> What do we do with the non-american components of Usenet?  They already
> have governing boards for their portions ... and they do receive
> newsgroups from here (not all however).

	How are the foreign governing boards run? Do they work successfully?
If yes, is their success due to good governing, or simply fewer sites to
oversee?

> At many places the existance of News is a hush-hush secret that, if the
> grey suits were to find out about, would get thrown off the system.

	Hard to hide the bills for phone and disk storage much longer...

> And don't think we'd never get to requiring official recognition either.
> That's a logical extension of setting up a governing board...

	I think the bigger issue that you raise is "Has Usenet grown
to the point where we must have central administration or Usenet will
crumble under its own weight?" I'm not sure. I would like to think
that some kind of "federated" network, with a central body making
suggestions, but the individual sites retaining autonomy would be
better, and is feasible. But this may be unrealistic.


-- 

					eric
					...!ptsfa!hippo!eric