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From: lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: Vote Fraud and Newsgroups
Message-ID: <765@vortex.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Aug-85 04:50:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: vortex.765
Posted: Fri Aug 30 04:50:16 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Aug-85 08:18:12 EDT
References: <2309@ut-ngp.UTEXAS>
Organization: Vortex Technology, Los Angeles
Lines: 27

It isn't that easy for many sites to take partial feeds.  Since the
downstream sites are affected by the choices the upstream feeds make,
any attempt to "cut back" on newsgroups by many sites frequently
results in cries and screams from downstream.  "Don't take away
the important groups like net.bizarre and net.flame," they yell!

It is NOT true that it's harder to rally support FOR a group than
against it.  For ANY TOPIC you care to name, you could get a bunch
of people together to support it.  A few people will bother to
speak out against it.  The vast majority couldn't care less and
won't bother to say anything.  This latter group doesn't intend to read it,
but they don't care about the disk space and phones and such, so they don't
care if it gets sent around.  Let's say you had some oddball topic
that 20 people wanted to discuss.  They are prolific--they
post lots of messages.  The group will LOOK "useful"--it will certainly
have plenty in it... but does it serve the net at large?  Couldn't
a mailing list have done a better job?  The amount of waste
involved in the net is almost unimagineable.  Mailing lists could
serve many interested people far better in many cases than newsgroups
being sent everywhere.

When the large sites that support much of the net start pulling
the plugs (and sooner or later they will) it's gonna be all
too clear what our "loose" attitude toward newsgroup creation
has netted us (no pun intended).

--Lauren--