Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!psuvax1!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!coolidge
From: coolidge@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu (John Coolidge)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Is USENET stagnating? (long)
Message-ID: <1989Nov2.064858.2465@brutus.cs.uiuc.edu>
Date: 2 Nov 89 06:48:58 GMT
References: <40056@looking.on.ca> <1989Oct30.040015.3272@alembic.acs.com> <9499@max.u.washington.edu>
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Reply-To: coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu
Organization: U of Illinois, CS Dept., Systems Research Group
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Summary; Yes, this _is_ long...

wcn@max.u.washington.edu (W C Newell Jr) writes:
[A fairly long article, about which many good replies have already been
 made. I'm just picking and choosing points to extend on.]
>The speed advantage will last only as
>long as there is excess bandwidth, which may not exist beyond the next few
>years.

While this is true, it's not necessarily the dire threat that it appears
to be. Many of the regional nets, as well as the NSF, have indicated a
desire for _more_ 'bandwidth-wasting' on things like news. This is
because, in networking as in so many other things, the amount of usage
determines need and hence funding. The higher the load is now, the more
likely the national 'data superhighway' proposal is to actually get
passed and implemented.

>The consequence of this is that academia has now recognized Usenet as a
>production news and conferencing service, and is looking at its viability for
>various applications related to the instructional and research missions of
>higher education.

This is somewhat true; however, most users of the Usenet (academic or
not) realize that Usenet is not a corporate entity; it is not 'reliable'
in the sense that there is no official support mechanism for it. Usenet
will last as long as people want it, which appears to be a long time ---
therefore it's safe for production use. But its continued existance
cannot be _guaranteed_.

>[In reference to the flamefests in news.*:]
>The NNTP side
>of Usenet is not going to embroil itself in such trivial debates, however...

I haven't seen any particular qualitative difference in posts coming
from NNTP vs. UUCP/Bitnet/whatever in news.*, or anywhere else for
that matter. Both sides have good contributors and bad contributors ---
and the distinction is often not trivial (one person's annoying flamer
is another person's interesting commentator).

>The old-guard UUCP community, which currently holds administrative control over
>Usenet, has made a conscious decision to allow more-or-less unconstrained
>public access, with very few rules and essentially no enforcement of those that
>do exist.  This has allowed Usenet to evolve into an amazingly diverse forum
>being read by an even more amazingly diverse audience. [...]
>There is a price to pay for this openness, however.  Some
>of your best new ideas may be lost because the innovators take a look at the
>system as a whole and dismiss it as inherently umanagable.

This is _not_ a function of 'the old-guard UUCP community'. A lot of
NNTP sites believe in relatively public access with small amounts
of restriction and regulation as well.

And: the system _is_ 'inherently unmanageable'. There is simply no way
to 'manage' a vast collection of voluntary cooperating sites. The only
real obligation any Usenet site has is to its feeds, and even that is
a pretty tenuous obligation. There are lots of assumed _moral_ 
obligations (pass on what you received intact, etc), but these can't
be _enforced_ from outside (except by cutting the site out entirely).
It works because the _individuals_ (sites and people) who constitute
Usenet all _want_ it to work, not through any sort of management.

>I would personally like to propose the creation of a whole set of new groups of
>particular relevance to the academic applications, things like
> 
>[Many comp.*, edu.*, etc group proposals]
> 
>But I can't see how to get there from here.  The newsgroup creation process
>discourages experimentation.  There is some risk that radical elements (read:
>idiots) will sabotage our efforts before they are given time to take root.  Can
>such groups survive unmoderated, or will they sink to the lowest common
>denominator and then be abandoned by those who seek a true academic forum?  Who
>would be willing to moderate such groups knowing that it may mean accepting
>personal abuse from complete strangers who have no stake in the academic
>mission?  What leverage is there to deal with troublemakers?

The standard Usenet leverage: ignore 'em. If you really are interested
in trying something like this out, set up a proposal for an entirely new
top-level hierarchy (edu.* perhaps?) and put all of the groups within it.
There's plenty of precedent for that sort of thing. Only feed it to sites
that are interested --- if the idea blossoms, plenty will be. There are
plenty of useful groups in the Usenet that the idiots haven't managed
to sabotage; with careful distribution and moderation, there's no reason
why your academic hierarchy couldn't join their ranks.

>[First net experience;] It starts with a list of
>unsubscribed groups in alphabetical order, with alt.sex and alt.sex.bondage on
>the very first screen.  A typical continuation is to post a simple question in
>comp.whatever, which generates perhaps four e-mail replies, one with useful
>information and three flames for wasting net bandwidth.  Since our users tend
>to be of moderately high intelligence, they quickly assume that the net is
>dominated by a small subset of users with no academic or corporate affiliation,
>little or no accountability, and in certain cases exposing emotional problems.
>They are thus unable to take Usenet seriously.

Yes, and some people love the freedom of alt.* and believe that it
_proves_ that the net is something new and useful. After all, alt.*
works in spite of complete disorganization. The rest of the net works
better yet. As far as flaming responses and the like go, the best
defense is preparation: give your new users all of the Usenet newuser
guides and so forth, and write extensions based on local experiences.
Moderation won't help this problem --- as long as e-mail is fairly
free, it's pretty likely that some e-mail flaming will go on.

And, for me, the existance of the one useful reply should prove that
the network _is_ serious. On the other hand, I have _never once_ been
flamed seriously, e-mail or otherwise, for what I've written to the
net. I've had serious, sometimes bitter, occasionally unreconcilable
disagreements with people. but the level of discussion never got to
finger-pointing or name-calling. Nor have I ever been flamed for
wasting bandwidth. And I've been posting to the net for quite a while.
I'm _most certainly_ not denying that these things happen; I've read
alt.flame and seen posted e-mail proving beyond a doubt that such
things do happen. But they definitely don't happen to everyone, and
IMHO one's writing style and content have more to do with not getting
flamed then do random chance.

>There are an assortment of
>networking 'addicts' who frequent the center, some of whom will tie up ports
>for 12-14 hours/day doing nothing but read the local bulletin boards and
>Usenet.  I ask myself, "where is the educational value in that?"  We've even
>come close, once or twice, to legal actions alleging libel and/or sexual
>harassment, and one wonders when and where the first big Usenet scandal along
>these lines will strike.

There are several issues here. First is the 'lab rat' syndrome, which
happens pretty much everywhere. It doesn't worry me too much; most of
the lab rats have the computer lab as their social life (such as it is).
I've seen some serious relationships spring from silly newsgroups and
forums. There can be a tremendous amount of educational value in such
things, at least for some people, because users of things like Usenet
learn (or _can_ learn, at least) a lot about self-expression in print
media, writing style, and communication in general.

Second, there's the problem of libel and other legal issues. There are
several partial solutions to this. One is to put prominent disclaimers
all over the place: 'Warning, this network (or this portion of the
network) contains potentially offensive material. By reading this
topic, you agree to waive all claims of liability on the part of
the computer center, university, etc. for presenting this material to
you'. Warn people that their actions in posting have potential legal
consequences, and warn people that their actions in reading are
voluntary and do not create an obligation on anyone else's part.

>The bottom line is that Usenet is now visible to a much larger audience, one
>which has expectations of the network as well as new ideas to help bring them
>about.  Usenet must come to terms with the fact that it is no longer an
>experiment, or a club for state-of-the-art technologists, but rather a public
>service catering to disparate interest groups with conflicting needs.  This is
>a prerequisite to realizing major progress along the lines we are discussing.

People may have lots of expectations about Usenet. The question is:
just because someone has an expectation, does that create an obligation
to uphold the expectation? I don't think so. _Usenet_ must come to
terms with nothing in particular, because _Usenet_ as an entity does
not exist. The Usenet _is_ an experiment in cooperative anarchy. It
_is_ a club composed of all the sites that exchange news. The Usenet
is _not_ a public service in the sense that no site on the Usenet can
be compelled to carry any group or do any service that they don't want
to do (except, again, by public pressure (which winds up creating
voluntary actions in the end, anyway) or by cutting them out).

>1)  It should be possible to add/modify/rename groups by a consensus of expert
>users rather than by a popular vote.  The time has come for the creation of
>some official Usenet by-laws, and in particular for the establishment of a
>governing body with elected representatives from the various constituent
>groups.  This body should have ultimate authority on administrative issues such
>as the naming of groups, the status of moderators and the certification of
>software updates.

As others have mentioned, this is the 'backbone cabel' writ large.
There will never be 'official Usenet by-laws' or a Usenet 'governing
body' because the resulting network WILL NOT BE the Usenet. It will
be an entirely different network. The fundamental defining
characteristic of the Usenet is not the groups it carries (several
are available elsewhere) but rather the voluntary, cooperative nature
of the beast.

>2)  The major security holes now in place must be dealt with ASAP.  Our users
>do not appreciate having to repeatedly refuse subscriptions to bogus groups
>such as alt.sex.bestiality.  Forgeries may eventually become a real problem;
>this may require some enhancements to the protocols.

But that's the entire _point_ of alt: _anyone_ can create groups
whenever they want to. Don't carry alt.*, or fix your newsreaders
to assume unsubscription to alt.*, or warn people about its nature.
Newgroups in alt.* are _not_ part of a security hole, they're what
alt.* is all about.

This doesn't deny loads, and I mean loads, of real security holes
within the various pieces of software used to implement Usenet. 
Fixing them will require major changes net-wide, and lots of work
for lots of people. For now, the net has made a de facto decision
to live with the holes because the sites are unwilling to pay the
(fairly high) cost of installing security. If you can find a bunch
of volunteers willing to implement a comprehensive security package
for the Usenet, though --- go for it!

>3)  Site managers have to be impressed with the importance of ensuring that
>their local users adhere to Usenet guidelines and reasonable net etiquette.  We
>could probably split off a heated debate on how exactly to go about this.  As a
>corollary, major sites such as ours may need some legal protection in actions
>which stem from libelous or obscene material we may receive as part of the
>feeds.  This would suggest the development of a "rights and responsibilities"
>document of some form, which would be signed by all participating sites as a
>condition of membership.

Many site managers could care less whether their users adhere to the
guidelines or follow etiquette. Many site managers run Usenet on a
time-available basis, and don't even begin to have the time to watch
what their users are doing. Some site managers are running private
home machines, some are pure volunteers not even employed by the
organization that owns their machine, etc. The responsibility should
be on the users, not the site managers. The same is true with legal
liability. Right now, it's a guess as to exactly who is liable, but
the best bet is probably the individual who caused the problem.
Organizing the Usenet, changing it from a voluntary association,
and adding a 'rights and responsibilities' document will probably
_increase_ the risk for the sites, not decrease them.

>4)  Sites with problem mailers (e.g. Portal) should be tarred and feathered.

Again, they're on the network voluntarily. If they fail to follow
the standards, all that can be done is to put vocal pressure on them
and to flame them. There's nothing that can be done to _force_
them to change short of cutting them off.

>5)  Every established newsgroup should have a moderator and an archive site, or
>even more than one of each for very active groups.

As someone else pointed out, who's going to pay for all this? With
the other proposed changes making the Usenet an organization rather
than a cooperative, people will expect pay for services rendered.
Lots of people will volunteer time and effort to help out the
vast, wonderful, anarchic Usenet. How many of those people would
contribute to Usenet, Inc? Especially considering that their status
as moderator will probably increase their legal risk...

>6)  Usenet needs a mechanism for maintaining a database of mail distribution
>lists at each backbone site, and for passing updates to this database along
>with the feeds.

Not a bad idea. Perhaps someone should volunteer to implement it?

>I do not wish to slight the valuable suggestions put forward by others
>regarding local newsreader enhancements and the improvement of searching and
>indexing capabilities.  I do feel that the above-described changes are of
>fundamental importance if Usenet is to remain a single entity.

Usenet is not, has never been, and will never be a single entity.
Usenet is (repitition is a virtue :-) ) a cooperating collection
of autonomous sites. If someone took what is now the Usenet and
created a formal Usenet, Inc out of it, then most likely another
collection of cooperating sites would spring up to fill the gap.
IMHO the 'new Usenet' would be a much more interesting and useful
entity than Usenet, Inc before too long, because most of the people
keeping the Usenet going now would throw in with the new voluntary
net, not the old, no-longer-anarchic Usenet.

>The consequence of not implementing these changes is that the academic side of
>the network will, in all probability, explore the idea of maintaining a
>separate distribution hierarchy with its own administrators, and as the
>software evolves to meet the high volume of academic users, the public sites
>will be left behind.

Why should this be so? What is it about academic use that mandates
high volume, and what evidence is there that the public sites couldn't
handle it? Why do non-academic public sites care about academic-
oriented traffic anyway? Why couldn't they continue to contribute
to other, non-academic-specific groups?

Closing note: the one thing that most fascinates me about the Usenet
is watching a cooperative anarchy actually function and do things
that many theorists thought anarchies couldn't do. The second most
fascinating thing is the ability to engage in discussions with
people from all over the place: academics at all levels, workers
in industry with many different jobs, and users in the general
public. This is what makes the Usenet such a valuable 'place'
for me --- and, I suspect, for many of the other regular readers.
Losing the diversity, the chaos, the dissention, the occasional
flaming, the sheer anarchy of the net would drastically reduce
its value to me, and I'd probably stop contributing either my
thoughts to the net or my efforts in keeping the articles moving.
Probably lots of others would do likewise. Each person dropping out
doesn't wreck the net, but fifty or one hundred key admins dropping
out would severely impact the net --- and many of them _would_ drop
out if the net were to change. A lot of people derive satisfaction
for contibuting to the good of Usenet by developing or fixing 
programs, adding and maintaining sites, fixing propagation glitches,
whatever. Many of them would stop doing these things if the net
were to be bureaucratized, because somehow contibuting to the
wellbeing of a formal bureaucracy is less satisfying than
contributing to a cooperating group, even if the group is large.

--John

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
John L. Coolidge     Internet:coolidge@cs.uiuc.edu   UUCP:uiucdcs!coolidge
Of course I don't speak for the U of I (or anyone else except myself)
Copyright 1989 John L. Coolidge. Copying allowed if (and only if) attributed.
You may redistribute this article if and only if your recipients may as well.