Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!nsc!chuqui From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) Newsgroups: net.news.group Subject: Re: Causes on the net... (Suggestion to limit traffic) Message-ID: <3207@nsc.UUCP> Date: Wed, 4-Sep-85 02:46:24 EDT Article-I.D.: nsc.3207 Posted: Wed Sep 4 02:46:24 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 08:30:28 EDT References: <205@kepler.UUCP> <774@vortex.UUCP> <2978@sdcc3.UUCP> Reply-To: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Chuq Von Rospach) Organization: Uncle Chuqui's Lemming Farm Lines: 85 Summary: In article <2978@sdcc3.UUCP> ee161bep@sdcc3.UUCP (Paul Van de Graaf) writes: >In article <774@vortex.UUCP> lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) writes: >>It seems to me that the nature of the network is such that it can >>only really sustain a certain number of active contributors at any >>one time. You can theoretically let millions of people READ the >>materials (just like millions watch TV), but if too many people >>are trying to send IN material, and if it ALL gets "published" >>(that is, a non-moderated environment) then the overload is going >>to get worse and worse, both in terms of costs (both obvious >>and non-obvious) and in terms of information "saturation" that >>will gradually cause more and more people to stop reading netnews. I'll happily (unhappily?) agree with Lauren on this. The sad fact IS that many people are overloading and are cutting back significantly on what they read, or giving up completely. Many of these people are the people we need most desperately to make the net work -- the technical gurus, the intelligent, the sensitive, the core group of knowledge and answers that the net needs to survive. I think there is a significant brain-drain on the net, and this causes a strong negative positive feedback cycle -- the more decent people who split, the faster the ones left will leave because they won't have anyone interesting to talk to. >I'm not all that familiar with the internal workings of Usenet, but it seems >some form of moderation other than moderated newsgroups would help to curb >traffic. Moderation as it currently is set up turned out to be a rather unqualified failure. With the exception of a very few groups that were essentially moderated before (mod.map, mod.newslists, and the std crew) none of the other moderated groups has really shown any positive functionality at all. I just don't think there is a way to graft moderation onto the USENET setup, unless you are willing to redefine USENET. >What I'm suggesting is some form of quotas on traffic on a per >site, newsgroup, or user basis. In short, a site, newsgroup, or user would >be allowed to post only so much in a given time period, and then no more. >Given this kind of advance information, network flow and transmission costs >could be predicted. Administration of quotas would be left up to the site. Leaving the censorship issues out (and I don't think they are significant) I don't see how something like this can be implemented in terms of the current net. You have something like 2000 sites out there, running both netnews and notes, and there are multitudes of versions of each out there as well. Even assuming that you could come up with a workable plan and get it installed in both news and notes (ignoring for now the unique stuff out there as well) and get it installed in the standard releases, they would only end up being valid on the sites willing to upgrade to those releases (and, I might add, sites whose SA upgrades without simply commenting out the code or raising the limits or something). This isn't something that can be dealt with reasonably once it leaves the local site, and that makes implementation real difficult. Also, would a single company with a gateway to 1000 workstations get quota for 1000 sites or one? Also keep in mind that getting the software written, debugged, and into a new release of news is a time consuming project. I've pointed out this fact before and I don't want to go into deathly detail again, but if we had a design today, and if we had a volunteer force of programmers today, and if we could all agree to do it, it would still be a year to 18 months before anyone would see it in a standard release of news, and another year to 18 months before 50% of the network had upgraded to that version of news (this ignores any implementation for notes, too). We're now into 1987, more or less, with less than a 50% penetration. Do we really HAVE until 1987 before this net implodes? I think the major design flaw in USENET is that it has always been designed to be easy to post. We've added lots of ways to make it easier to get stuff onto the network, to include parent articles, to get our words out into the ether. (This is because it is very important to get your words out where everyone can revel in them, and I'm one of the most guilty on this...) What we really ought to have done, and should do in the future, is make it as easy as possible to read (and trash) news as possible, to help the reader get through the trash as efficiently as possible. Rn is the first positive step I've seen in this direction in a long time, but from a design standpoint I think it has some serious drawbacks. I've got some ideas on the whole situation, but frankly, they aren't USENET, and if they ever see the light of day they may not be compatibile with USENET. I think USENET as it currently stands is a dinosaur with the head cut off, with the hindbrain lumbering through its paces, waiting for the collapse. Its probably time to start looking at what we do next. It isn't USENET, it isn't mailing lists, it isn't anything we have now. We can make use of what we have but its time to stop being hindered by it. -- Chuq Von Rospach nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA {decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4}!nsc!chuqui Son, you're mixing ponderables again