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From: ee161bep@sdcc3.UUCP (Paul Van de Graaf)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: Causes on the net... (Suggestion to limit traffic)
Message-ID: <2978@sdcc3.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 3-Sep-85 03:51:12 EDT
Article-I.D.: sdcc3.2978
Posted: Tue Sep  3 03:51:12 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 09:12:51 EDT
References: <205@kepler.UUCP> <774@vortex.UUCP>
Reply-To: ee161bep@sdcc3.UUCP (Paul Van de Graaf)
Organization: U.C. San Diego, Academic Computer Center
Lines: 39

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.
>
>--Lauren--

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.  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.

Whether this can be done within the framework of current software remains to be
seen, but I'm sure such a policy would certainly improve the signal to noise
ratio.  When posting is limited, users will think twice about sending out the
sort of garbage which fills net.bizarre & flame much of the time.  The ability
to post articles should be a priviledge that can be taken away for mis-use.
New users might be required to read news for a while to find out the policies
of the net, before being able to post.  Whether this borders on censorship is an
issue to be explored, but nearly all newspapers/magazines/etc. are censored in
some way (ie. edited).  A quota system would provide a form of self-censorship,
without requiring the lag and inconvenience of moderated newsgroups.

I've left a lot of details out, because I don't know enough about Usenet to
comment specifically on its administration.  I'm just a user who muddled into
this discussion because I read a few pointers to it in net.columbia & bizarre.

Additional proposals & comments on curbing traffic would be interesting...

Paul van de Graaf	sdcsvax!sdcc3!ee161bep		U. C. San Diego