Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!van-bc!sl
From: sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: The death of USENET
Message-ID: <1820@van-bc.UUCP>
Date: 23 Jun 88 16:05:19 GMT
References: <2645@rpp386.UUCP> <56228@sun.uucp> <2350@inco.UUCP> <56250@sun.uucp> <2355@inco.UUCP> <10456@mcdchg.UUCP>
Reply-To: sl@van-bc.UUCP (pri=-10 Stuart Lynne)
Organization: Wimsey Associates, Vancouver, BC.
Lines: 25

In article <10456@mcdchg.UUCP> heiby@mcdchg.UUCP (Ron Heiby) writes:
>Dave Mack (mack@inco.UUCP) writes:
>> of the net, cut them out of it.
>
>I was involved in something along these lines.  In my previous job, I ran a
>site on the backbone map.  Shortly after I left the company, the management
>decided to stop forwarding news to non-company machines.  Fortunately, those
>of us who were getting news from this backbone machine had almost 48 hours
>to find alternative feeds.  What happened was that I "stole" all but one of
>this ex-backbone site's backbone news feeds, since they were no longer willing
>to provide feeds.  BTW, I offered them a feed, if they polled me for it.  :-)

I think this points out the fact that in most cases the backbone is made up
of *individuals* not companies who are willing to put their time and energy
into keeping Usenet working. 

How many times have we seen a site "dry" up when the system manager leaves?
In some cases like this one to be replaced with a new one organized by the
same person at a new company. 

Machine cycles and disk space are cheap. Lets show some more respect for
these guys who keep the whole thing running. 

-- 
Stuart.Lynne@wimsey.bc.ca {ubc-cs,uunet}!van-bc!sl     Vancouver,BC,604-937-7532