Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 5/22/85; site cbosgd.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.abortion,net.misc,net.motss,net.origins,net.philosophy,net.politics
Subject: reorganization of soapbox newsgroups
Message-ID: <2139@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 17-May-86 16:55:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.2139
Posted: Sat May 17 16:55:33 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 19-May-86 04:16:43 EDT
Followup-To: net.news.group
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh
Lines: 97
Xref: watmath net.news.group:5594 net.abortion:3173 net.misc:9632 net.motss:2892 net.origins:3111 net.philosophy:5361 net.politics:16041

The Usenet backbone has been discussing the problem with traffic volume
for the past few months.  Some sites have been forced, by their own phone
bills, or by management directive, to cut way back on the news they carry.
Rather than just have random cuts of various groups by various hosts,
probably resulting in the complete death of many newsgroups (the same way
that net.bizarre was killed) we've decided to try to do this in a fashion
that will be consistent, and allow those who want to continue to discuss
these topics to do so, at their own expense.

Our proposal is to create a new distribution, talk.all.  This distribution
would initially be carried by everybody that carries net.all.  Certain
so-called "soapbox groups" would be moved from net to talk.  Then those
sites who are unable or unwilling to carry the talk groups would stop
carrying them.  The list of soapbox groups to be moved to talk is:

	net.abortion
	(net.bizarre)
	(net.flame)
	net.misc
	net.motss
	net.origins
	net.philosophy
	net.politics
	net.religion
	net.religion.christian
	net.rumor
	net.suicide
	net.women

net.bizarre and net.flame don't currently exist (although net.flame does
exist in some parts of the net) but could, if the users of talk.all wish,
be created there.  The criteria for including a group in this list is that
the group be high volume, low readership, and "more heat than light."
This list is subject to change, for example, net.religion.jewish has been
suggested for inclusion.  It has also been suggested that net.women become
a moderated newsgroup, with the hecklers taken off.

Indications from the backbone members are that roughly half of the backbone
would discontinue talk.all, and half would carry them.  In fact, of the half
that would not carry them, several have already cut off a similar set of
groups on their own, and the rest were getting ready to.  By notifying the
net of our intentions ahead of time, we leave those members who want to
continue to carry these newsgroups plenty of time to make arrangements for
their own backbone.  This talk backbone can, of course, include that half
of the regular backbone which will continue carrying talk.  (This won't
happen overnight - we expect discussion to continue until the end of May,
at which time we'll make a decision.  The implementation will take place
during June, and after July 1, cutoffs may begin.)

We are presenting this to the net in order to give the net a chance to
comment, and to make constructive suggestions for improvements.  Please
understand that the backbone is not going to back down on this because
of flames from hardcore participants in these groups, about how we are
obligated as backbone sites to pay your phone bills so you can flame
each other about controversial topics at our expense.  We are going to
do something, and unless somebody has a much better idea, the above
proposal (modified by any good ideas from the net) will be implemented.

I must also point out that suggestions such as "get faster modems" are
not going to change things.  While many of us already have 2400 baud
modems, and we're always looking into ways to cut costs by improving
the equipment, there are other major costs besides phone bills.  These
costs include CPU time to run UUCP and rnews, disk space, the SA's time
to clean up the various messes that happen from time to time, and the
time spent by employees of the various backbone companies reading these
groups, following up, replying, and so on.  The major costs are phone
bills, CPU usage, and disk space.

This discussion is taking place only in North America (distribution "na".)
Europe and Australia have indicated they don't want to pay for the traffic
of this discussion, since the groups in question don't go overseas anyway.
This in turn implies that the talk.all distribution would also stay
within the na distribution, not worldwide.

Possible changes to the above include (but are not limited to):

(1) Additional groups to be added to the list.

(2) Groups that should be subtracted from the above list (unlikely to change
    the list without strong justification and agreement by the backbone.)

(3) It has been suggested that while we're at it, we create "world.all",
    and we gradually move net.all to world.all.

(4) It has been suggested that some groups should become "local" groups
    which are kept to one part of the country;

(5) Another alternative is to create moderated versions of these groups.
    It would be the job of the moderator to keep out duplicates, repetitions,
    excessive inclusions from other postings, and general flaming/heckling.
    Moderated groups might go to even more places than the current net.all
    groups go, for example, Europe could participate in a mod.politics,
    even though it doesn't get net.politics.  (We have a mod.politics now,
    but it's not doing anything.)  mod.women has also been suggested.

	Mark Horton
	speaking for the Usenet backbone