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From: spaf@gatech.CSNET (Gene Spafford)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group
Subject: Comments on Reorganization
Message-ID: <4558@gatech.CSNET>
Date: Wed, 17-Sep-86 21:53:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: gatech.4558
Posted: Wed Sep 17 21:53:00 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 19-Sep-86 22:45:35 EDT
Reply-To: spaf@gatech.UUCP (Gene Spafford)
Organization: Software Engineering Research Center (SERC), Georgia Tech
Lines: 144
Xref: mnetor net.news:2034 net.news.group:3449

When I've had the time to read some of my news I've seen a lot of
flaming passed back and forth about the newsgroup reorganization.  A
couple of themes keep coming up in these postings, and I'd like to
address a few of them.

Note that I am simply expressing my perception here, and I am *not*
attempting to speak for anyone else, backbone "cabal" included.

1) The newsgroup reorganization is happening because of mounting
costs.

No, the reorganization is happening for a number of reasons, and
steadily increasing costs is simply one of the more pressing factors.
There is no denying that a different grouping of topics may aid some
sites with limited capacity in picking and choosing what groups to carry,
but that is by no means the only reason.  In fact, many sites no longer
carry all the groups despite the "net" prefix, and much of the initial
reorganization simply mirrors that fact.

We also have a number of people who have been concerned by the steadily
increasing number of newsgroups along with a lack of good organization
and understanding of the groups that are there.  Due to the naming
structure of newsgroups, new posters (and long-established posters)
have problems knowing what groups are for.  The net has grown in scope
and a better organization of groups is needed to aid in understanding
what groups are present and what they are for.  Our new structure
should also aid in creating new groups, and should even (to some
extent) make it easier to create new groups.

Stargate is a motivating factor in this, too.  We are creating some
"mod" groups as part of this switchover, and depending more heavily on
"mod" groups to carry some traffic.  This not only raises the general
"signal" content of the groups, but makes more material eligible for
Stargate broadcast.

Last of all, this kind of shake-up should help strengthen the net
some.  Many sites are developing alternate feeds to support mailing
lists and limited distributions of some groups.  We may also get some
ancient versions of news upgraded.  Although you may debate this, the
general view of such events is that these are benefits and not
drawbacks.

2) The backbone "cabal" is behind all this and are making decisions
without knowing all the facts.  We can't have our opinions heard!

*NO one* can know all the "facts" about Usenet!  It has gotten too big
and too much volume for anyone (or group) to be expert at such things.
That is one of the problems.  The best we can do is combine the
experience of the people who produce and maintain the majority of the
software and who maintain some of the biggest and/or most strategic
sites on the net (note -- I didn't use the words "most important sites"
because they're all important).

Be that as it may, it is not just the backbone admins who planned
this.  The current group of newsgroup moderators and a number of
invited netters have been in on the discussion for some time.  I have
organized 3 mailing lists in the past three years talking about
something like this and had almost 150 Usenet users participate in
those discussions.  I'm not the only one to do this.  Almost every such
discussion ended up at about the same place, but no one knew how we
could get enough co-ordinated action to accomplish it.

Times have changed, and so has the net.  We are now working as a group
to try to steer things in a direction where growth can continue and the
net can survive, but not in such a totally unconstrained and expensive
manner.  We are doing this because we've been with the net a long time
and watched it grow.  We also want the net to continue to flourish
because we believe it is important.

We're doing the best we can with the information and tools available.
We decided to push ahead with the plan we have, even though it wasn't
completely polished.  We did this because we had over 50 people
review and comment on 8 iterations of the list we finalized on and
decided that the only way to fine tune the thing was to try it out.
Experience will show what needs to be changed.

That's right -- everything isn't final.  Why should it be?  New groups
will always be added, and old groups deleted.   Once we have made the
complete switchover and run it for a while, things that need to be
changed can be identified and switched.  We might even consider making
some changes now if presented with well-thought out reasons rather than
attacks.  We had to present it all as a fait accompli because otherwise
the debate would go on forever and nothing would be decided.  We also
didn't want to open it up to debate by the netters who view their own
words on the printed screen as the ultimate truth and artform -- you
know the type: endless chatter and no substance.  Therefore, don't
expect us to make any changes in the current plan, but don't condemn it
as a final design either.

3) My favorite group doesn't belong in "talk" -- I don't want it
deleted.

First, "talk" groups aren't being deleted.  They are just unlikely to
be propagated throughout the whole net (same with "soc" I suspect).
The groups currently in "talk" are mostly only available in the US and
some of Canada now, as a matter of fact, so there may not be much
change in distribution patterns.  At least half of the backbone admins
polled at Usenix indicated that they would continue to carry all the
newsgroups after the reorganization.  Depending on load and other
factors, that percentage could be much, much higher.

If we made some mistakes in where we placed some groups -- sorry.  See
#3, above, for what we might do to resolve the issue.

4) Mod groups are unreliable -- the new structure places too much
emphasis on them.

Well, "mod" groups have been less reliable than they should be due to
site administrators who have been unwilling (or unable) to keep
software and associated files up-to-date.  News 2.11, about to be
released, has features to make posting to moderated groups much more
robust.

As to the question of "too much emphasis" on mod groups, well, we don't
think so.  The concept works in nearly every other network and needs a
little more tuning here on the Usenet.  If they are made more reliable
for posting this point should be answered in a year's time.


Final point -- this isn't being done as an academic exercise, or
because there is some small group intent on "proving" something to the
world.  Nor is it something being driven only (or even primarily) by
cost considerations.  Instead, it is an attempt by a group of
experienced, concerned individuals to help prune and shape the net into
something that will continue to grow and exist.  We're a big enough
group with an incredible amount of collective experience with the net
so that we believe (hope!) we're addressing everything that needs
addressing.  We're not claiming to be perfect or even know what's best,
but we do believe in what we're trying to do.  We have consulted many
other people and debated the reorganization issue many, many times.
And finally, we are not forcing anyone to go along with any of this.
It may seem that way, but that is simply because the people and sites
who do all the support for the net and its software, and who maintain
and pay for much of its propagation are involved in the change.  That is
significant, but those same people are going out of their way to
keep the software capability to allow sites to set up their own
distributions and network(s) if they so desire.  Please try to consider
all this if you're still tempted to flame.

-- 
Gene Spafford
Software Engineering Research Center (SERC), Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet:	Spaf @ GATech		ARPA:	Spaf@Gatech.GATECH.EDU
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