Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) Newsgroups: news.groups,news.misc,news.stargate,news.sysadmin,news.admin Subject: Re: EndOfSourcesList+AnnouncementOfNetOmbudsman -- communication? Message-ID: <8235@utzoo.UUCP> Date: Thu, 2-Jul-87 12:11:21 EDT Article-I.D.: utzoo.8235 Posted: Thu Jul 2 12:11:21 1987 Date-Received: Thu, 2-Jul-87 12:11:21 EDT References: <266@brandx.rutgers.edu> <8225@utzoo.UUCP>, <272@brandx.rutgers.edu> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology Lines: 66 Keywords: solving the moderation bottleneck > The message you are replying to specifically mentioned that it was > always assumed that some people would choose not to carry some things. Unfortunately, it is *precisely* the moderated groups that we *want* to carry... so long as they truly are moderated. From our viewpoint, you are basically proposing to destroy their usefulness. > > [needless vulgarity edited]. You should have seen what the vulgarities looked like before I edited them... You are doing a very bad, very egocentric, very destructive thing that will be of immense harm to Usenet. Believe it or not, this is not the same net it was several years ago, and there is no way to turn back the clock. > Currently, neither party exercises these rights much since it would > result in a chaos that neither wants... And you are doing your level best to change this. > ... I definitely favour improved security and quotas > for controlling the flow of news... Quotas, as you have been told repeatedly in private mail, are unworkable nonsense. Improved security carries a heavy price, but is looking necessary. > ... it looks to me like you can get a > level of security comparable to the security of a person's login > password on a typical unix system -- i.e., too easy to be worth > breaking, but hard enough so that it isn't broken casually... We are aiming at a somewhat higher level of security, specifically one that is good enough that Bob Webber in particular will not be able to routinely break it even if he tries. This is unfortunately a lot of work, both for us and for the software, and we would have preferred to avoid it. Alas, due to some shortsighted actions, both by the backbone and by certain individuals (notably you), the consensus that has kept Usenet running smoothly is starting to break down. > ... my basic understanding of C News is that it is an attempt to > make the same old mistakes run faster. Much more interesting would > be to abandon the notion of backwards compatibilty... We see nothing terribly wrong with being compatible with the existing setup. There isn't anything really wrong with it except that it doesn't scale well to really large user communities. We have thought a great deal about this, and our conclusion is that the only long-term solution is 100% moderation. However, it seems worthwhile to speed up traffic handling anyway. > This would yield > a new net that was initially smaller and preserved many of the virtues > of the old Usenet... What you're suggesting, as I understand it, is deliberate incompatibility specifically aimed at forcing most existing sites off the network. You have not explained why (a) the same thing would not happen to the new network after a year or two, and (b) how this is consistent with your disparaging comments about the "alternate backbone" concept. > ...such silliness as confusing the question of moderation with the > question of whether or not a particular discussion category is needed. Let us not mention such silliness as confusing the desire to see new groups moderated with unwillingness to create them. -- Mars must wait -- we have un- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology finished business on the Moon. {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry