Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!chuq From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: The Dynamics of Debate on USENET Message-ID: <35099@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 28 Sep 89 20:27:03 GMT References:Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps Lines: 27 > Interestingly, USENET debates have a property that doesn't exist with > face-to-face debates: multiple participants separated by huge > temporal delays. >I tend not to give much credence to this argument these days, because >of the low propagation times of the NNTP massfeed hubs, one of which >is my site. Don't look at it from a techincal standpoint, Karl. While propogation delays were the gating problem when volume was lower and the net was younger, these days it's people delays. Not everyone reads news on a daily basis (nor should they. It's actually, I think, much more effient to read it less often in larger batches than in dribs and drabs. Doesn't mean I do it that way, but...). In a face to face debate, you have real-time responses. On USENET, there are some propogation delays, but there's also the delay between delivery of the message to a site and when that message is actually read. Think of holding a debate with someone via voicemail. The delivery delay is functionally zero, but that doesn't mean there isn't any delay in the system. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> Editor,OtherRealms <+> Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com <+> CI$: 73317,635 <+> [This is myself speaking. I am not Appl Segmentation Fault. Core dumped.