Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-lcc!pyramid!octopus!pete From: pete@octopus.UUCP (Pete Holzmann) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Usenet volume (and a suggestion...) Summary: Is it time to consider regionalization yet? Keywords: volume news Message-ID: <461@octopus.UUCP> Date: 7 Dec 88 08:28:51 GMT References: <1995@van-bc.UUCP> <1275@vsi1.UUCP> <2707@epimass.EPI.COM> Reply-To: pete@octopus.UUCP (Pete Holzmann) Organization: Octopus Enterprises, Cupertino CA Lines: 68 Our stats: Running vanilla 2.14 news. 30MB spool partition. Two daily expires, one at 2 days, one at 2 weeks for intensively-interesting stuff to local news junkies. Occasional full-partition trouble requiring hand file-deletes tells me we'll be going to 40-50MB Real Soon Now. A thought: many moons ago, for a somewhat different reason, I suggested that we need to consider more regionalization of the net. I wonder if it might behoove us to figure out some such solution sooner (i.e. the next few months) rather than later (i.e. after the net has crushed itself under its own weight). To wit (a strawman proposal, to give a flavor of what might be possible): - Improved separation of newsgroup namespace from distribution namespace, so that various regions could all have their own rec.taxes or comp.music.rock-n-roll discussions, without having lots of regional newsgroup names. - The news software (active file? sys file? new file?) would have a specific default distribution area for each group. It would be best to have a mapping to make installation easy (e.g. the file would have distributions like 'city', 'province', 'region', 'continent', 'world' rather than 'ba','ca','uswest','na','world'). The installer would define the locally applicable mapping. - To begin with, all groups could default as they do today. - Once in place, appropriate groups (high volume, lots of "experts" available everywhere, and/or little value to worldwide discussion) could be limited to regional discussion. - Presumably, a moderator would be available to promote articles to a wider audience whenever necessary. Well, hopefully that's enough to shoot some shotgun shells at. Seems to me that something like this is a practical way to limit traffic without losing the true value of the net. Sure, it's nice to see what people all over the world think about my latest question, but a *few* responses is plenty. With the net as big as it is, every question in many groups gets *TOO MUCH* feedback. We need to limit the audience! My criteria for audience-limiting algorithms includes: 1) Discussion threads must make sense and be contiguous to all participants. In particular, this means that randomly dropping articles would be a Bad Thing. 2) Low volume valuable discussions need and deserve widespread distribution. Other categories may not need widespread distribution. Conclusion: flexibility must be possible. 3) I'm interested in lots of different things. Don't cut me off completely from all discussion in any newsgroup that I want to recieve and/or post to. 4) Moderation, in moderation, is a Good Thing. There isn't enough Quality Volunteer Time to moderate the whole net. And I don't have the stomach to turn Usenet into a set of Compu$erve Forums (with paid moderators, etc). 5) I *liked* the Good Old Days. All we need is a way to give *everybody* the Good Old Days. Enough already. -- OOO __| ___ Peter Holzmann, Octopus Enterprises OOOOOOO___/ _______ USPS: 19611 La Mar Court, Cupertino, CA 95014 OOOOO \___/ UUCP: {hpda,pyramid}!octopus!pete ___| \_____ Phone: 408/996-7746