Xref: utzoo news.misc:1082 news.config:387
Path: utzoo!linus!husc6!hao!gatech!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!h.cc.purdue.edu!s.cc.purdue.edu!rsk
From: rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu (Frozen Wombat)
Newsgroups: news.misc,news.config
Subject: Re: The USENET Backbone (Last changed: 10 December 1987)
Message-ID: <1857@s.cc.purdue.edu>
Date: 5 Jan 88 15:41:33 GMT
References: <2802@arthur.cs.purdue.edu> <14191@oddjob.UChicago.EDU> <2844@arthur.cs.purdue.edu> <443@pcrat.UUCP> <1846@s.cc.purdue.edu> <444@pcrat.UUCP>
Reply-To: rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu.UUCP (Frozen Wombat)
Organization: Purdue Computing Center Unix Systems Staff
Lines: 46

In article <444@pcrat.UUCP> rick@pcrat.UUCP (Rick Richardson) writes:
>Just try to create a newsgroup without "Backbone" support.  It'll
>be deleted.  Yet, ARPA "inet" newsgroups get converted to USENET groups
>with nary a vote.  How about net.jokes?  I believe that group
>was victimized by censorship at a backbone site around 1982.

1. You can create a newsgroup without backbone support if you like; but
many sites, possibly including many backbone sites, will not go along
with you and create it on their machines.  That's their choice, since
it's their machines we're talking about.  In fact, we have about three
dozen newsgroups here that are only locally distributed, since it seems
rather unlikely that the rest of the world would be interested in something
along the lines of "purdue.cc.cs220" (For CS220 students). :-)

You can also create a newsgroup without backbone support by joining the "alt"
distribution, which does not operate under the same contraints/philosophy
as the traditional Usenet backbone.

2. The Internet mailing lists that are now part of the inet distribution
are not "Usenet" newsgroups; true, their names are in the same namespace,
and they are exchanged between some of the sites that exchange the Usenet
groups; but they are part of the "inet" distribution, and every site that
sends/receives them has decided to do so freely.  Please note that (as far
as I am aware) no Usenet-wide newgrp messages were issued for those groups 
(however, there may have been inet-distribution-wide newgrp messages) so
it is not accurate to call them "USENET groups".

3. I would like to know the details of this 1982 incident in net.jokes.
However, I should point out that even if this incident is substantiated,
it seems to me that 1 incident at 1 backbone site involving 1 newsgroup
5 years ago doesn't really conjure up visions of mass censorship.

>>Would those of you (like Rick) who find it so distasteful kindly go
>>somewhere else with your ill-informed speculations?
>
>I've already gone somewhere ... to UUNET.  "We don't like your views,
>so please leave" - hmm, smacks of censorship to me.

Clearly, we have differing views of what censorship is; politely asking
someone to move their uninformed opinions elsewhere is quite different from
taking active steps to ensure that their views are not heard.  The former
is called "exasperation"; the latter, "censorship".  This is a recurring
problem; those folks who seem the most annoyed with "The Evil Backbone
and The Dark Lords of Usenet" always seem to be the most under-informed. 
-- 
Rich Kulawiec, rsk@s.cc.purdue.edu, s.cc.purdue.edu!rsk