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From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford)
Newsgroups: news.misc,comp.sources.d,news.groups
Subject: Re: why alt.sources? (Definitive answer, some history)
Message-ID: <2989@arthur.cs.purdue.edu>
Date: 19 Jan 88 16:42:10 GMT
References: <171@sea375.UUCP> <1459@sigma.UUCP>
Sender: news@cs.purdue.EDU
Reply-To: spaf@uther.cs.purdue.edu.UUCP (Gene Spafford)
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
Lines: 89


The question has been asked: "Why are sources in alt.sources instead of
comp.sources.misc (or similar)?"

The short answer: people using the alt.sources group wanted an
unmoderated sources group, and a significant number of sites carrying
Usenet groups indicated they would *not* carry such a group.

The long answer:  net.sources was one of the oldest and largest
newsgroups on the Usenet.  It was gatewayed into the Arpanet as the
unix-sources mailing list.  Many sites archived the group to keep
sources that came across.  It was a valuable resource.

As time went on, however, entropy took its toll.  People began posting
binaries for PCs, requests for sources, bug fixes, commentary on the
state of the group, flames about posting binaries, and so on.  Non-Unix
postings became frequent, much to the dismay of the Arpa-land readers.
The group began to suffer from a large noise-to-signal ratio, where
some weeks the number of non-source postings would outnumber source by
2 to 1 or more.  Sites archiving the group were also suffering because
they ended up archiving this chaff along with the wheat, so to speak.

Usenet groups were created for these other types of postings, including
the binaries groups, the discussion subgroup, the "wanted" groups, and
the other source groups.  Unfortunately, many posters either ignored
the existence of these other groups or else they crossposted into the
sources group.

A moderated group was seen as the way to go.  One was created and run
for about a year, alongside the net.sources group,  and the
signal-to-noise was very high.  Many people stopped reading net.sources
due to its volume and noise; some sites even stopped carrying
net.sources.

During the 86 summer Usenix, a majority of the backbone admins got
together along with a number of other site admins and discussed plans
with renaming and problems with the net.  The usual complaint people
had with moderated groups was the difficulty with mailing submissions
and being sure they got through (there were other concerns, but they
weren't voiced as often).  So, along with the renaming, we came up with
a change to the news software to make it easier to submit to moderated
groups by using the "mailpaths" mechanism.  (I believe the credit for
that idea goes to either Larry Auton or Ron Heiby for first getting the
idea, and to Rick Adams for implementing it).

When the renaming of the comp.* groups was done, the unmoderated
net.sources was dropped (by not translating it into a comp.? group).  A
_j1g{oll of backbone and other sites showed that many would not carry an
unmoderated sources group if it existed, so it didn't make sense to
continue claiming it was a netwide group (Europe had ceased to get
net.sources due to volume long before).

Meanwhile, a number of people were upset that there would be no
unmoderated group for "quick-and-dirty" source postings, or posting of
sources quickly, and so on.  Thus, they were unhappy with having only a
moderated group.  The response to this was to continue to carry the
"net.sources" group; no rmgroup was every issued for it, so sites
keeping it in their "sys" file could continue to pass it, thus having
an alternate hierarchy.

At the same time, a different group of people set up another, alternate
distribution of an unmoderated sources group.  Since two other
alternate groups already existed (alt.drugs, because many "mainstream"
sites didn't want to carry postings about recreational drug use, and
"alt.gourmand" because Brian Reid didn't like the new name of
mod.recipes so he refused to support the renamed Usenet group), it was
decided to create an unmoderated alt.sources group.  After a short
while, the sites carrying "net.sources" merged it into "alt.sources".


As things now stand, mainstream Usenet users seem happy with the very
high level of quality of postings to the current moderated sources
groups, along with the distributed archives and indexing being done.
Meanwhile, I guess the alt.sources group is alive and well (we don't
get it here) carrying whatever it carries; the fact that every site
doesn't carry it and that the mainstream moderated groups work so well
no doubt helps ensure that it is not overwhelmed with garbage
postings.

Bottom line:  if you have source you want to share, and if you take a
little time to put some documentation (and maybe a makefile) together,
the moderated groups will give you the widest possible forum.  On the
other hand, if you have some source or discussion that doesn't meet the
requirements for the moderated groups, you can post to "alt.sources"
and reach 1/3 to 1/2 of the same sites.  
-- 
Gene Spafford
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet:  spaf@cs.purdue.edu	uucp:	...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf