Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!alberta!teletron!andrew
From: andrew@teletron.UUCP (Andrew Scott)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Too much for the reader?
Message-ID: <402@teletron.UUCP>
Date: 7 Jul 88 17:01:27 GMT
References:  <397@teletron.UUCP> <4278@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>
Organization: TeleTronic Communications Ltd., Edmonton, Alta.
Lines: 27

In article <4278@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>, fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) writes:
|>In the referenced article, andrew@teletron.UUCP (Andrew Scott) writes:
|>
|> 	I'm *obligated* to carry those groups.
| 
| Whoa! Please show me the obligation that I signed that forces me
| to commit the resources of my system for your benefit?

Well, I never signed anything, but an informal "handshake" obligation _does_
exist between our site, our upstream feed, and our downstream feeds.

| What's really going on is that every site on USENET (with some
| exceptions) is doing every other site on USENET a big favor, and
| occasionally some of them can't afford the favor any more. If you
| were trained properly by your parents, you'll thank them nicely
| for the favor you got, and offer to return it some day. I see this
| happen a lot more often than I see system admins screaming about
| being cut off.

I can see this happening too.  It's unfortunate, as I believe that there
are "Better Ways" of doing things.  I'm still not convinced that a steadily
increasing volume on USENET is a Good Thing.  I'd like to carry everything.
I'd much rather see a reduction of volume in each newsgroup than a reduction
of newsgroups carried by my site.  Perhaps I'm just too selfish.
-- 
Andrew Scott		andrew@teletron.uucp    - or -
			{codas, ubc-cs, watmath, ..}!alberta!teletron!andrew