Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!potomac!jtn
From: jtn@potomac.ads.com (John T. Nelson)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: The death of USENET
Message-ID: <6359@potomac.ads.com>
Date: 27 Jun 88 21:56:23 GMT
References: <7475@swan.ulowell.edu> <2645@rpp386.UUCP> <56228@sun.uucp> <8545@netsys.UUCP>
Reply-To: jtn@potomac.UUCP (John T. Nelson)
Organization: Advanced Decision Systems, Arlington VA
Lines: 48

From: len@netsys.UUCP (Len Rose)
Subject: Re: The death of USENET

> Is there any way to formalize Chuq's proposals,and get them acted on
> by the net at large? Or should I say the "backbone" at large.

This, of course, raises the old Backbone Cabal arguments which I'll
let some other poor slob step into.  I think it would be atrociously
antisocial though, to simply write up a set of proposals and then
convince a restricted, yet powerful group of net administrators to act
upon them "on behalf of the network at large."  Yeh... not cool at all.

> Binary
> and noise groups being deleted would reduce overall traffic by at
> least 30 percent. Eliminating microcomputer groups should be held off
> as long as possible since pc's play an important part in today's 
> computing environment and are often part of a Unix oriented network.

Which groups are more important than others depends upon the
environment you come from.  For those sites with no microcomputers,
these groups might be the first to go.  I agree, however, that the
binary groups are fair game.  No one wants to spread an epidemic of
computer viruses.  If you don't have a compiler to compile source code
then you probably don't want public domain stuff anyway.

I agree that a lot of the noise groups could go away.  Talk.bizzare is
fair game.  Maybe soc.singles... just maybe.  It really depends on
your point of view.  Me?  I just expire them quickly or restrict them
from my site altogether.  This keeps disk usage down which is the
real expense.

> Just my opinion,so please treat it as such.. I have no illusions as to
> what weight it carries.. Flames are stupid and waste spool space.

So are ill-considered opinions.

... and hey ... let's be particularly careful out there, okay guys?


-- 


John T. Nelson			UUCP: sun!sundc!potomac!jtn
Advanced Decision Systems	Internet:  jtn@potomac.ads.com
1500 Wilson Blvd #512; Arlington, VA 22209-2401		(703) 243-1611

"Hi... My name is Hobbes.  I'm the product of a malicious 5-year old's
twisted and destructive imagination.  Would YOU like to be my friend?"