Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!aramis!webber
From: webber@aramis.RUTGERS.EDU (Webber)
Newsgroups: news.stargate
Subject: a no cost solution to the current netflow problems
Message-ID: <521@aramis.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Thu, 23-Apr-87 03:15:23 EST
Article-I.D.: aramis.521
Posted: Thu Apr 23 03:15:23 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Apr-87 00:31:42 EST
References: <965@vortex.UUCP> <7946@utzoo.UUCP>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 37
Summary: the key stuff is in the first screen full.

In article <7946@utzoo.UUCP>, henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
(re why usenet will distruct)
> I do.  I'll tell them that it self-destructed due to its inability to
> handle unlimited growth.  It will, you know...

Actually we are helping it self-distruct (it ain't dying a natural death).

THE BASIC SOLUTION:

The most natural solution would be that if the a site cannot expend
more than a certain amount of resources toward supporting the net,
then it should just support the net to the extent that it can and then
cease for that day.  That would let the net adapt to such throughput
restrictions in a `natural manner' (other sites picking up more share
as they percieve greater responsibility).  Of course, this is quite
different from the power trip of getting up and telling everyone that
you support the net to $x and you are going to control the net or
completely withdraw.


GENERAL PHILOSOPHY BEHIND THE PROBLEM AND SOLUTION:

Both stargate and moderated groups are symptoms of the same kind of 
wrong-thinking, i.e., if you have a distributed system and it is
having problems, the solution is to centralize control.  Both stargate
and moderators will naturally suffer from the problem that when
central control goes down, the system flounders.  In both cases you
have information being first distributed to a central site then being broadcast
from there.  The result is that the central site (and immediate
neighbors) control the system (both directly by setting policy and
indirectly in that their problems become everyones).  Sure they will
reduce flow, but unmoderated newsgroups (where existing in tandam with
moderated newsgroups) have consistantly higher quality (will come back
to this in a later message), faster response, and greater reliability.


----------------------- BOB (webber@aramis.rutgers.edu ; BACKBONE!topaz!webber)