Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu!karl
From: karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: The Dynamics of Debate on USENET
Message-ID: 
Date: 28 Sep 89 14:47:21 GMT
References: <35033@apple.Apple.COM> <46115@bbn.COM> <35037@apple.Apple.COM>
	<147@isgtec.UUCP>
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Organization: OSU
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In-reply-to: bmw@isgtec.UUCP's message of 27 Sep 89 12:15:39 GMT

bmw@isgtec.uucp writes:
   >o If it's already been said, don't say it again.

   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.  Since at least last winter, there's been a pronounced
tendency to run nntpxmit _often_.  Erik Fair/Apple&UCB has nntpxmit
going off every single minute.  I'm doing it every other.  Brian
Kantor/UCSD has a modified nntpsend script which sends _continuously_
until it runs out of things to send (which, I suspect, is almost
never).  It is not at all uncommon for me to see an article arrive
here which has already come through 6 or 7 hops with a Date: that's
less than 20 minutes in the past.

Now, this is by no means true for everyone.  UUCP sites which are fed
by every-other-hour (or whatever time frame) batching still have the
delays.  But it seems to me that delays are less of a concern now than
ever.

--Karl