Newsgroups: news.admin Path: utzoo!henry From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) Subject: Re: A Thought Experiment about News.Groups Message-ID: <1989May29.232541.25574@utzoo.uucp> Organization: U of Toronto Zoology References: <371@odi.ODI.COM> Date: Mon, 29 May 89 23:25:41 GMT In article <371@odi.ODI.COM> Benson Margulies writes: >Let's imagine a different technical base for the news. Assume, if you >will, that newsgroups were merely automated mailing lists, as on >BITNET. Each one would have a sponsor, who would provide the >computational resource for redistributing the mail... Who in his right mind is going to volunteer for that? Usenet is too big. Bitnet is back in the dark ages; even the Internet is starting to use Usenet's technology (in modified forms, e.g. NNTP) for distributing news. Decentralized distribution is an enormous win for material that is read by many people. Quite apart from not placing enormous loads on a single distribution point, it also decentralizes administration. One of the biggest pains of maintaining a mailing list is the constant flow of administrative duties, and the steady stream of "mail bounced, but I'm not going to tell you why" messages from idiot-savant mailers. -- Van Allen, adj: pertaining to | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology deadly hazards to spaceflight. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu