Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: Cabal
Message-ID: <28375@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 4 Apr 89 18:31:00 GMT
References: <14681@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US>
Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps
Lines: 40

>>I backed a proposal for a new "cabal" of administrators, made up of all
>>administrators who care to be a part of it, with the only requirement being
>>that you are an admin.

>Allowing any and all comers to vote is also wrong, IMHO.  The leafs
>outnumber the rest of us by large margins.  Letting the site admins
>of bazillions of leafs dictate USENET policy will be no better than
>better than the current situation.

The purpose of the original backbone cabal was the concept "he who pays the
bill says where the money goes" -- and the backbone cabal finally fell apart
when the concept of 'backbone' grew so fuzzy that the size of the backbone
blossomed and the cabal group grew too large to be effective.

I think the original concepts are still valid: the people paying the bills
(with time, money and resources) call the shots. Thee should listen to what
the net says, but in the final analysis, if it's your pocketbook you do what
you feel is best. The other thing is to keep it relatively small. 5 is too
small -- 50 is too large. Pick a good number in between.

The Original backbone was at least two incoming feeds and three outgoing
feeds with at least on long-distance feed. NNTP did that definition in.
Anyone fee like building a better definition? You don't ignore NNTP links,
because someone distributing via NNTP to 10 sites is doing a lot more than
someone distributing one link via telebit trailblazer, even though the cost
of the latter is higher.

I also don't think you should ignore people who's contributions are other
than strictly financial -- Spafford, Mark Horton, Greg, Henry. At least on
an advisory basis, the knowledge and experience of these folks shouldn't be
poo-poohed.


Chuq Von Rospach       -*-      Editor,OtherRealms      -*-      Member SFWA
chuq@apple.com  -*-  CI$: 73317,635  -*-  Delphi: CHUQ  -*-  Applelink: CHUQ
      [This is myself speaking. No company can control my thoughts.]

USENET: N. A self-replicating phage engineered by the phone company to cause
computers to spend large amounts of their owners budget on modem charges.