Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!qantel!lll-lcc!lll-crg!seismo!brl-adm!brl-smoke!brl-sem!ron From: ron@brl-sem.ARPA (Ron Natalie ) Newsgroups: net.followup Subject: Re: The elimination of certain non-technical newsgroups by so called "powers-that-be" Message-ID: <183@brl-sem.ARPA> Date: Tue, 29-Apr-86 15:10:27 EDT Article-I.D.: brl-sem.183 Posted: Tue Apr 29 15:10:27 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 2-May-86 09:43:53 EDT References: <588@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD. Lines: 58 In article <588@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>, michael@ucbiris.berkeley.edu (Tom Slone [(415)486-5954]) writes: > A rumor has been put out that certain so called "powers-that-be" in the > backbone-sites are deciding the fate of certain non-technical > newsgroups, either to eliminate them, or to give them a second class > status. The discussion is taking place without the general knowledge > of the USENET community. It is being done in an attempt to reduce the > ever increasing costs of USENET, particularly to these backbone-sites. The cutting of news groups is always a sore point which is about an equivalent effort to balancing the federal budget. It's not just non- technical groups, even technical groups that are limitted to a particular minority interest come under fire a lot. Personally, I see a lot of the discussion between members of the backbone and UCB and BRL are the major gateways between USENET and other mail networks. I have seen lots of people bitching about things, but the only the following concrete things have taken place or seem likely to in the future: Several improperly started groups that seemed squelched by the people who have taken on the effort of providing the lists of valid groups. It would be difficult to tell the real groups from the ones accidentally or maliciously created by random users on the net. Net.flame stopped being sent accross the backbone. This group and it's undirected arguments was being posted to indiscriminately and almost invariably posted to some additional group as well. Killing net.flame was a good idea. I don't think the flames have gone away, but just headed back into the individual groups (or to net.misc when there wasn't such a group). I proposed a while back that there are certain groups that are soft of discussion/social clubs with a LOT of traffic (e.g. net.bizarre, net.rumor, net.flame). These lists would probably exist quite fine in a regional setting (since a couple of neighboring states could generate enough traffic to keep the list readers happy). However, the status of statewide distributions such as nj.all is pretty poor and ends up having to be implemented on each an every host and getting people to change software is like pulling teeth. My proposal is that such groups be tagged as REGIONAL. The only people that would have to know of such an designation are the backbone sites. REGIONAL group articles would be tranfered between all sites with the exception that they would be barred from backbone to backbone links. Hence, the backbone charges go down without major investment in convincing people to change their software and real news weenie sites could open up their own links to sites served by different backbone nodes so that they got the news from multiple regions. I mentioned this before and Rick Adams said that he was extremely in favor of it and would implement it. As for the WORLDNET analogy that you express, USENET is user a large co-op. The backbone sites provide quite a service for which they eat the charges. While it is a nice idea that they could transmit unlimited traffic, let us be realistic. Let them transfer what is economically feasible. If there is a demand for a group that they can not transfer to be passed, then other sites can coordinate to be an alternative backbone path for that one group. =Ron