Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!chinet!patrick
From: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: In Moderation: A Moderator's Re
Message-ID: <8720@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 18 Jun 89 22:03:02 GMT
References: <3300@epimass.EPI.COM> <197600001@inmet>
Reply-To: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 109

In article <197600001@inmet> justin@inmet writes:

>Re: In Moderation Network

>Jeez.

>I confess, Usenet's hostility to change has to be one of its most remarkable
>features.

And the number of people on the net who fail to realize that Usenet is not
GEnie and Compuserve is not Usenet is also amazing. How far do you think this
argument would get you on GEnie or Compuserve? They have their way of doing
things and their purpose for existence, just as Usenet has its purpose.

>FACT: The signal/noise ratio on the net has been steadily declining for ...
>well, at least the couple of years that I've been around. Probably Longer.

That depends on who you ask, and which groups you read. 

>FACT: A substantial number of people are continually dropping off of the
>Net, due to the ever-growing noise level. Including many of the founders of
>the Net.

This does not seem to be reflected in the monthly Arbitron reports, although
those reports are not to be considered completely reliable. If anything, my
reading of the Arbitron data (is there any other source of information on
this topic?) is that *more* people are involved with Usenet than before.

>OPINION: It is a Bad Thing that many people are no longer using the Net, due
>to the difficulty of reading it.

Well again, maybe it would be a bad thing if fewer people were around, but
I get the impression more people are around, or at least the newcomers have
more than offset the number of old-timers not around.

>Anterior is offering a simple service, a pared-down version of the Net with
>a lot of that noise cut out. Frankly, the cost listed is pretty reasonable,
>considering the *huge* amount of work involved in doing that -- I expect that
>they're going to need a substantial payroll.

Amazing! You contradict yourself in the same paragraph. If they are offering
a 'simple service', why will they have a huge amount of work invlving a
big payro? That does not sound simple to me.

>However, to listen to you people, one would think that Geoff had proposed
>limiting the Usenet to just what he wants to see on it, and preventing
>anyone from getting anything else. 

But by definition, 'signal to noise ratio' means the amount of things the
reader wants to see versus what he does not want to see. Do you want to go
by my estimation of 'signal to noise' here, or Mr. Goodfellow's? Either way,
the result is the same: it will be what the editor/excerpter/moderator
'wants to see on it', and will not include what he does not want to see.
Whoever does this will eliminate what he deems 'noise' and retain what
he calls 'signal'. So in my original message saying In Moderation would be
what the people involved wanted to present, and would not include what they
did not like, where is there a difference in what you said above about
the high 'noise to signal ratio'? It is just going to be a matter of who
picks the noise and defines the signal, no?

>In Moderation is going to draw new, possibly interesting people to the
>Net, who have previously been unable or unwilling to deal with it before.

>So what the bloody hell is *WRONG* with that?

But will it be two way traffic? UUNET also charges, but they pass the
traffic both ways. Does Mr. Goodfellow intend to extend Usenet groups and
messages of his choice to his subscribers *and* permit them to respond to
the messages, passing them back to the entire network for reivew? Or will
they just read his stuff and have no opportunity to reply to the person
who wrote the item in a public forum as it was originally presented?

And if he does permit two way traffic, will he screen what his subscribers
send us, the way he screens what he permits them to receive? And suppose
he passes one of their messages to us: will he then automatically insure
that our reply gets passed back? What if they send something, but his
censors deem the reply from this end to be unworthy? How will his subscribers
know we even saw, let alone replied in a public forum?

>But I really get teed off by all of you who *cut* the connectivity
>of the Net, in the name of everything being free. Sorry, there is only
>so much volunteer labor to go around. If the Net is to grow and prosper,
>it's going to take labor, and that labor costs. If some people are
>willing to pay to get an improved version of the Net, who are you to
>deny them that? The only thing you're hurting by trying to screw up
>the In Moderation net is the Net community as a whole...

By definition, Usenet has always been free, or as nearly so as possible.
There have always been phone bills to pay, etc. By defintion, networks
like GEnie and Compuserve have always had paid employees and labor costs.

If there is 'only so much volunteer labor to go around', then that is the
theoretical limit to Usenet's size and growth. I suppose there is also 
some theoretical limit to the number of people who will pay for subscription
services like Compuserve.

If people are willing to pay to get an improved version of the net, that is
fine -- they can follow the UUNET example, and set up a not-for-profit 
corporation to provide communications/feed services to places which could not
otherwise afford it. They can purchase public access machines and make 
accounts available at a modest charge to good users who otherwise have not
been able to get access (no university affiliation, etc). There are a lot
of ways to help improve the net.


-- 
Patrick Townson 
  patrick@chinet.chi.il.us / ptownson@bu-cs.bu.edu / US Mail: 60690-1570 
  FIDO: 115/743 / AT&T Mail: 529-6378 (!ptownson) /  MCI Mail: 222-4956