Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83 based; site houxm.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!gregbo From: gregbo@houxm.UUCP (Greg Skinner) Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Re: Origin of the name grep (long) Message-ID: <879@houxm.UUCP> Date: Sun, 2-Sep-84 13:34:51 EDT Article-I.D.: houxm.879 Posted: Sun Sep 2 13:34:51 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 3-Sep-84 11:52:59 EDT References: <12966@sri-arpa.UUCP>, <1372@nsc.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 154 I guess I should respond to this, as I have experienced both sides of the fence (or both sides of the gateway, if you prefer). Before I came to Bell Labs, I did work on the ARPAnet and read net.unix-wizards (actually unix-wizards@brl-tgr.ARPA, I think) and sent a few questions in occasionally. I won't post this to net.unix-wizards though, because I don't think we need to bother the ARPAnet with our internal problems. > From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq) > From here on the usenet side of Unix-wizards it's easy to say that 'unix > trivia' belongs in net.games.trivia. Unfortunately, life is a LOT more > complicated than that because of the different ways the newsgroups are > handled. > the ARPA people have the disadvantage that something posted here on usenet > to net.unix and net.unix-wizards will show up in their mailboxes twice, > once to INFO-UNIX, once to INFO-UNIX-WIZARDS. Usenet has the advantage that > the software will (should?) only show it once. When ARPA people post to > both, everyone sees it twice. And we also get to see all of those wonderful > messages about mailing lists that people forget to send to *-REQUEST. All > of this, is, of course, trivia in itself and completely beside the point. For those of you who don't know, our postings show up as mail to ARPAnet people, and their mail shows up as postings. Through various hacks to mail and news software, at the ARPA/USENET gateways one format is turned into another. I can recall when I first read SF-LOVERS I wondered what all the weird addresses were with the ! signs in them, and when I sent replies a lot of them were rejected! Anyhow, back to the main point ... > What isn't beside the point is the question raised in all of this-- > appropriateness of material on a given topic. This has been a subject of > growing controversy on the Usenet side as the volume of material increases. > There basic problem seems to be that there is no well known definition of > appropriate material. On any given subject we seem to be able to find at > least one person who will yell loudly that the material is bogus and > another will yell JUST as loudly that is isn't. I've noticed over the last > six months that we are starting to spend a lot more time yelling about > things and a lot less time discussing them. A lot of newsgroups are quickly > becoming useless because of the sheer volume in them and the fact that most > of that volume is basically useless material. The causes for that are many: > 1) people who respond to things by following up to the group > instead of mailing. How many articles have you seen with the > definition of grep in it? Why weren't these mailed to the person > interested instead of plowing them through the net? Actually, I missed this discussion. There is a lot of "followup fever" on the net these days. I have noticed in a few newsgroups conversations taking place between posters which would have been better continued in private mail. Unfortunately, there is not much that can be done about this because this is the nature of netnews, as opposed to ARPAnet mail. As Chuq says later, to eliminate this problem would require a different implementation of netnews (not necessarily in software but some rules and regulations would have to be implemented, at least). > 2) People who are new to the net asking questions that they don't > know the answer to, but touching on things that were discussed > before they got on the net. Perhaps all system administrators should set up .newsrc's so that their users get net.announce.newusers or whatever that newsgroup is that contains emily-post and all the other introductory material. 3) people who are sloppy about their postings, putting things in the wrong places, asking questions that don't belong on the net (how many places do you know of with a unix system that wouldn't have ONE person who knows what GREP means?) and generally not thinking about the consequences of their action. Actually, I'm surprised when I saw the original, that the poster was from AT&T. I have to agree with Chuq on this one ... especially in the case of unix-wizards, one should be careful in what one posts their. Questions that cannot be answered by co-workers in adjoining offices to yours are probably good candidates for posting to net.unix-wizards, but not much else. > the REAL question is: What can be done? Run TCP/IP instead of UUCP. :-) > the real answer is, I don't know. When a mailing list gets large enough on > ARPA, someone takes over as moderator and does some cleanup to make it > tolerable again. This is a BIG advantage of ARPA over usenet. We've tried > in the past to experiment with moderators and every attempt has been yelled > down with screams of dictators and fascists. Usenet people will kill for > the freedom to post garbage, it seems, even if it eventually kills the net. > Because of the lack of coordinated control of the net, I doubt moderators > would work anyway because that assumes that all of the sites will set up > their software to work with moderators. We all know the success of getting > sites to do things like upgrade software and fix bugs, much less install > software to implement controvesial functions. In all honesty, I must say that it is the loose control and moderation over USENET that I prefer over the stricter controls of the ARPAnet. I prefer the freer exchange of ideas and the varied backgrounds of the participants. The reasons for this are that there is no centralized governing body of USENET people who could enforce rules and regulations for message content, etc. (where would we find time to do this, let alone money?). On the other hand, ARPA, being (at least up until the ARPA/MILNET split) being under control by the DoD, has a centralized governing body which can take action in situations which are deemed abusive to the ARPA population. However, since the split, the ARPA- net has become more like USENET in terms of message content. For example, we note that a lot of USENET groups make it into ARPA, and vice versa, so ARPA is getting exposed to our style of conversations, and I have noticed a general change in the style of ARPA messages over the past two years. Also, a number of high-flamage lists (which USENET doesn't get, I think) have sprung up on the ARPAnet, with subject matter similar to already existing USENET groups. (This is partly true because the ARPAnet contributors are USENET contributors also.) > If we assume that tighter controls on the net are a hopeless wish, the only > other alternative we have is information. We need to teach people to use > the net properly. How? Good question. We've written and posted guides, > we've mailed comments and suggestions to transgressors, we've posted > suggested, screams, yells, and whimpers, and things keep getting worse. I > certainly don't know what will work anymore, nothing that has been tried > seems to. Again, without a centralized governing body to enforce order, these things can- not be accomplished. I am reminded (regarding the difficulty of getting bug fixes and standardized software on all net machines) of what happened in January 1983 when the switchover from NCP to TCP took place. A message was sent out to all ARPA Internet sites warning them that on 2/1/83 NCP would no longer exist and TCP would be the standard communications protocol. Any site which did not run TCP would simply be unable to communcate with the ARPAnet anymore. Well, 2/1/83 rolled around and sure enough, a lot of sites mysteriously vanished (I remember quite a number of mailing lists were re- turning bad addresses for quite some time after that, so USENET is not the only net with internal problems). The point here is that since ARPA had a govern- ing body, it could enforce the rules required for subscribers to make required changes, or lose their ability to access the net. I have not been to a USENIX conference myself, but I thought that such issues might be resolved there. However, USENET is growing and sooner (or later) if we want to keep the net around we will have to have a legislative body, because there will be just *too much* policy to be administrated in a distributed manner. > Perhaps it is time to simply junk Usenet as a failed prototype and come up > with a better communication scheme. Perhaps things will miraculously fix > themselves. I doubt it, though. I've got lots of questions about things, > but no answers, and the future of Usenet as it stands now looks rather > bleak to me. Anyone else out there have some answers that will work? Like I said, there's always TCP/IP. :-) Thanks for your article, Chuq. It gave me an opportunity to voice some opin- ions and observations I have had about USENET and the ARPAnet for quite some time. I hope that others of you will voice your opinions as well. In par- ticular, I'd like to hear from some of you who have seen both sides of the fence like I have -- those of you who had access to the ARPAnet and USENET and had an opportunity to observe their respective cultures. -- Hug me till you drug me, honey! Greg Skinner (gregbo) {allegra,cbosgd,ihnp4}!houxm!gregbo