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From: jerry@oliveb.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.stargate
Subject: Re: response to questions about Stargate Experimental Subscriptions
Message-ID: <562@oliveb.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 24-Feb-87 12:01:19 EST
Article-I.D.: oliveb.562
Posted: Tue Feb 24 12:01:19 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 27-Feb-87 01:59:51 EST
References: <102@stargate.UUCP>
Reply-To: jerry@oliveb.UUCP (Jerry F Aguirre)
Organization: Olivetti ATC; Cupertino, Ca
Lines: 77

In article <102@stargate.UUCP> stargate@stargate.COM writes:
>We are carrying only moderated newsgroups since that's the only
>reasonable manner in which we can ensure quality and manage our
>transmission bandwidth.  The unmoderated groups for which there is

Just how much volume can be generated using only moderated material?
The only moderated group having significant volume (and therefor
significant transmission costs) is mod.sources.  The last statistics
posting put it at 11%.  I suspect that is peak rather than average
because postings to mod.sources tend to be "bursty" because the
moderator saves things up until he has time.  All the other moderated
groups were in the under 2% of total net volume class.  If anyone
(rick@seismo?) has statistics for a longer period of time I would like
to see what the moderated groups actually contribute to traffic, keeping
in mind that many of the "mod" groups are really just unmoderated
mailing lists and therefor unsuitable for broadcast.

Lets be generous and call this the 15% solution.  Is it worth the cost
of time and equipment setting all this up to get just 15% of the news.
I for one am not ready to give up on net.sources, comp.bugs, etc.
Despite the high noise level I derive significant benefit from them.

The proposed speed of service is not much of an advantage for moderated
groups as the delay of the moderator is greater than the current
transmission delays.  Not a ripe field for "discussions in a timely
manner".

I don't mean to totally disparage the efforts to develope stargate.  I
think it is a neat idea.  It is just that the restriction to moderated
materials would kill it for me.  It is too bad that the legal situation
has forced them into such nonsense.  Also, I don't care if they make a
profit or not.  I would only care about the price as should anyone
thinking clearly.

>the system--it is not economically practical to maintain a satellite
>system if only a few sites subscribed to the system and they simply
>passed material around via dialup to many other sites.

At last it comes out of the closet.  They are going to take the
moderated articles and copyright them!  Only sites directly connected
benefit from this service, there is no fanout of benefit.

>Of course, in the long run the amount of information being sent by
>Stargate may be so large that such "non-direct" sites would be unable
>to receive all materials, and of course such sites will also be
>receiving all materials later than direct subscribers, reducing their
>ability to participate in discussions in a timely manner.

This line is totally bogus and would have been better left out as a
justification.  As I understand it the output of the box has been
described as 2400 baud.  Presumably there is a significant amount of
redundancy in the information so that down time does not result in loss
of data.  So how is this "large" volume of data going to overload a
UUCP link?  And of course the "timely discussions" is bogus for
moderated material.

Granted that it would be necessary to restrict redistribution to recover
costs.  If that isn't enough reason, throwing in mom, apple pie, and the
SO next door won't improve things.

Mention is made of including additional (non-usenet) material.  Having
no idea what that is I could not comment on it.  There might be enough
to justify stargate but most valuable information is not free so it
would probably add to costs as well as value.

I strongly believe that stargate will survive and become a functional
service.  I just as strongly believe that it won't be carrying Usenet
traffic.  After that proves impractical someone will get the bright idea
that this could be used for distributing want adds, part numbers, stock
market quotations or some other commercial service.  (Who would have
believed auctions on TV?) The direction will shift to this and the
Usenet stuff will fade to background or nothing.

I don't want to discourage the stargate developers,  I do think
something useful will come of it.

					Jerry Aguirre