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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!oliveb!jerry
From: jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry Aguirre)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.news
Subject: Re: A proposal for a modified voting rule
Message-ID: <601@oliveb.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Sep-85 20:41:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: oliveb.601
Posted: Thu Sep 19 20:41:55 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Sep-85 04:00:44 EDT
References: <3215@nsc.UUCP> <1471@cbosgd.UUCP>
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 45
Xref: watmath net.news.group:3802 net.news:3954

> I think we need to go further than even this.  There should be a transitive
> closure rule applied - you get credit for everybody downstream from you
> if all their news goes via you, in addition to your direct neighbors.
> From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)

According to this formula I get >1800 votes because as near as I can
figure it every site on the net is "downstream" from me!

I see a lot of this kind of thinking on the net and I can't understand
whether it represents a mistaken view of the usenet topology or a
desire to impose a different topology.  The terminology of "upstream"
and "downstream" really only has meaning when applied to the path taken
by a specific article.  Thus for most postings I am "downstream" from
hplabs but for any postings on other sites I feed then hplabs is
downstream from ME.

Granted that I can be considered downstream from hplabs because of
volume of transmissions, that is not always an easy decision to make.
It is not necessary (or in my oppinion desirable) for the net to follow
a star topology.  It is perfectly possible for two "leaf" sites to open
a full news feed between them.

If you are going to base "upstream" and "downstream" on the volume of
transmissions then how are you going to collect that data?  The only
source that I know of is supplied voluntarily by the sites themselves.
The weekly news activity reports for our area present a bizzare image
of connectivity not readily apparent from the usenet map.

While I aggree that the sites that most support the net should have a
greater say in the control of the net I am not sure that a weighted
voting scheme is the answer.  Should a leaf with 40 news readers get
less of a vote than a "backbone" with 5?  Should the news administrator
be the only one to vote?  Do I get to count my 4 internal systems as
votes?  If so and I feed a dozen micros instead of one mega do I get
more votes even though they represent the same number of users?

I think that the real answer is that the backbone sites already do have
a bigger vote.  They can just refuse to create or cary a news group
that they do not feel is justified.  This is fair in that if you want
someone else to pay for sending your group around the net then you have
to present a good argument for doing so.  Otherwise your group remains
a local one.

					Jerry Aguirre @ Olivetti ATC
{hplabs|fortune|idi|ihnp4|tolerant|allegra|tymix|olhqma}!oliveb!jerry


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