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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!cmcl2!philabs!polaris!herbie
From: herbie@polaris.UUCP (Herb Chong)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.news
Subject: Re: Re: Fear and Loathing on the Clouds
Message-ID: <267@polaris.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Nov-85 14:47:39 EST
Article-I.D.: polaris.267
Posted: Sat Nov  9 14:47:39 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 19-Nov-85 05:42:45 EST
References: <1096@trwrdc.UUCP>
Reply-To: herbie@polaris.UUCP (Herb Chong)
Organization: IBM TJ Watson RC
Lines: 69
Xref: watmath net.news.group:4604 net.news:4378
Summary: 

In article <1096@trwrdc.UUCP> frith@trwatf.UUCP (Lord Frith) writes:

[Note:  in the following, "you" refers to the USENET population as
a whole, and not to Lord Frith personally.]

>The Netnews community more resembles an anarchy.  Our system of government
>is more like a republic where the power to govern has supposedly been granted
>by the people.  I think the power to make decisions CAN be distrbuted to
>the community with the right automated structure and that this would be
>an interesting experiment to try on the net.

this pre-supposes that the people have a sufficient understanding of
the total situation to make a decision that is in the best interests of
the net.  i used to be at the University of Waterloo where watmath is a
USENET backbone site.  it talks to utzoo, which is another backbone
site an hour's drive away.  we didn't see the situtation that Henry
Spencer sees at utzoo, and we weren't in a position to make a decision
that directly affects him without consultation.  now imagine what it
would be like for people like Peter Di Silva in Australia.  how is he
going to make a decision about something happening on the watmath-ihnp4
link?  by the time you take things like this into account, you have so
many ad hoc rules that the bureacracy ties everything down.  and does 
Peter really care about that link?  probably not.  he mainly cares
about his news feed.  

organizationally, you have to make the thing manageable, and a
hierarchy is the easiest way, though not the only one, nor neccesarily
the best, but it works, and has been shown to work in many
circumstances.

>The net and our system of government are VERY different.  I don't think this
>is really an adequate analogy.  Exactly WHAT governing and administration is
>required to "run the net?"  I may be wrong, but I see very little NECESSARY
>intervention by people.

what needs managing?  the newsgroups do.  imagine if everyone who adminstered
news at a site could create new groups at whim.  you thnk it is difficult
to organize how you read your news now, you should try it when there
are over 1000 newsgroups.  i am a memeber of a conferencing/news system
where there are about 1500 groups.  it is not a trivial matter to
follow, especially when anyone can create a newsgroup, not just an
administrator, and there are over 100,000 people that are members
of the system.  what about just the organizational aspects of
keeping track of who exists for mail and file transfer purposes?
once again, someone or some group of people need to.

>Me too.  But I resent the notion that this set of rules must be imposed,
>administered and beaten into the heads of people from a central autonomous
>cable that the community has no control over.

the community has a lot of control over it.  don't connect to the sites
whose policies that you don't agree with.  but then be ready to accept
all the consequences.  yes, you will have freedom to do what you want,
but is the price worth it?  you will have to pay the long distance
phone calls or have LONG delays in getting news and/or mail.  if you
think this is an acceptible price to pay, then go ahead.  no-one
is stopping you.

Herb Chong...

I'm still user-friendly -- I don't byte, I nybble....

VNET,BITNET,NETNORTH,EARN: HERBIE AT YKTVMH
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