Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!seismo!rutgers!pyrnj!romain From: romain@pyrnj.uucp (Romain Kang) Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: Re: A few Questions... Message-ID: <632@pyrnj.uucp> Date: Mon, 13-Jul-87 00:10:40 EDT Article-I.D.: pyrnj.632 Posted: Mon Jul 13 00:10:40 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 13-Jul-87 05:37:53 EDT References: <1036@bucsb.bu.edu.UUCP> <955@maynard.BSW.COM> Reply-To: romain@pyrnj.UUCP (Romain Kang) Organization: Pyramid Technology Corp, Woodbridge, NJ Lines: 55 Keywords: Usenet site responsibility Summary: mild diatribe In article <1036@bucsb.bu.edu.UUCP> berlin@bucsb.bu.edu.UUCP (David K. Fickes) writes: >(5) What obligations are going to be expected of us once we are > given a newsfeed? a. Run your node reliably. Several times in the past, there have been very small sites requesting news feeds from my machine. These have tended to be poorly run. It is extremely annoying to have 3 MB of news queued up for sites that never call to pick up their news, or tie up phone lines during the day because they either don't call frequently enough to keep the calls short, or don't pick the stuff up during low demand periods. (It is telling when one turns off such feeds and the downstream people never notice.) Do not use the name of a previously established node. (phoenix.princeton.edu, are you listening? Of course not...) Among other things, this disrupts news propagation in other parts of the net. It is also antisocial to flood the net with junk articles from broken software at your site. To borrow Henry Spencer's pungent phrase, you may piss in your own soup but not mine. (Thanks for fixing your gateway, Dave.) b. Be willing to feed other sites in your area. Every few months, I see a request for a news feed in the greater Trenton, NJ area. Every time, the same pattern repeats itself: The people who respond are already feeding at full capacity (princeton) or intolerably distant for the phone bills (rutgers). (Hey, no one's going to pat *me* on the back for feeding sites down there and blowing away phone money. Sorry, Gary...) Obviously, there is feed capacity somewhere in that area, but someone's not pulling their weight if the same names always come up. Also, I consider it unhealthy when just one site is doing all the work. Just wait and see what happens when seismo drops off the net this fall. Or ask the people in Atlanta how things were when akgua fell off the net. Or even consider the minor netnews disruption that just took place here in central Jersey when rutgers was uncommunicative over the past two days. The Bay Area around San Francisco appears much better prepared for such newsquakes, since some thought and planning has gone into network topology and load balance. If decwrl were to go out, things would still keep moving, if perhaps somewhat impaired. Anyhow, that's my perspective from running a small relay for the past two years. I'm sure the oldtimers have their own ideas of what good site behavior is. A handful of irresponsible or unreliable sites can cause widespread havoc (and multiplied expense), while a few good sites make things easier for the Usenet community at large. -- Romain Kang {allegra,cmcl2,mirror,pyramid,rutgers}!pyrnj!romain Pyramid Technology Corp. / 10 Woodbridge Center Dr. / Woodbridge, NJ 07095 "Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks!" -Adlai Stevenson