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From: jww@sdcsvax.UUCP (Joel West)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: Vote Fraud (actually mailing lists)
Message-ID: <1077@sdcsvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 1-Sep-85 13:12:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcsvax.1077
Posted: Sun Sep  1 13:12:47 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 07:07:04 EDT
References: <2309@ut-ngp.UTEXAS> <765@vortex.UUCP> <838@burl.UUCP>
Organization: CACI, Inc - Federal, La Jolla
Lines: 51

Curtiss Jackson quoted the infamous Lauren, then added:
> >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.
> 
> I think that we ought to seriously consider mailing lists
> for the more arcane groups;

Perhaps we have an administrative/political/psychological problem that
can, for once, be solved by software. :-)

A "mailing list" is, by definition, merely an alias for a list of
E-mail recipients who get messages from other members.  (For example,
I belong to two, uucp-project and info-applebus).

A "news group" is something everyone on the Net can see.  One doesn't
write messages, but rather posts "articles" to the news group.  Instead
of using ucb/mail (mailx to you, Curtiss) one uses fancy stuff like
postnews and vnews.

Suppose this dichotomy were reduced.  Suppose the net software were
modified to handle mailing lists.

This means that if I want to subscribe to 'net.bizarre', a publicly
maintained mailing list, my local copy of newsgroups and mailing lists
includes the address of owner-net.bizarre.  Perhaps I post an article
to net.bizarre.request; perhaps I post to net.bizarre with the
	Keyword: subscribe

After this, the net.bizarre articles are fed to my machine along whatever
path the "owner" sees fit.  They get dumped in /usr/spool/news/net/bizarre;
others on my machine may read them with "vnews", if they like.

LOOK MA, A REAL NEWS GROUP!  I MEAN, I CAN "POST", "FOLLOWUP", "REPLY".
Maybe if I'm lucky I make the top 25 list for the week.

And, incidentally, if the "owner" of net.bizarre comes up with 75 sites
receiving his mailing list, he posts to "net.news.group" and suggest
the net as a whole take it.

I'm serious, folks.  Frankly, I wouldn't mind if 30% of the news groups
were handled this way.  It would, at least, provide a more palatable 
alternative to allow specialized topics to be sent off the net and
onto mailing lists.

	Joel West	CACI, Inc. - Federal (c/o UC San Diego)
	{ucbvax,decvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww
	jww@SDCSVAX.ARPA

"Keep those cards and letters coming, boys and girls!"