Acwruecmp.30 net.news utzoo!decvax!cwruecmp!ordy Sat Dec 26 13:58:30 1981 Proposed Standards We have no major complaints with the proposed USENET policies put forth by cbosgd!mark. Some comments, however. 1) For sites thinking about connecting to USENET, and retransmitting news/mail, it would be nice to generate some estimates of cost involved, in terms of uucp connect time per day; CPU usage; and disk space required to support it all. Our experience has shown that uucp/news has become a 'major user' of our system. Some upfront estimates would help new sites understand what they are getting into. For example, would somebody like to guess what it costs (phone, cpu, disk) to send this one message to all sites? (and keep it for a month) I like the idea of informally pushing each site retransmitting news to two others, it insures growth capacity. 2) What has happened to the fa.unix-wizards newsgroup????? In the past month I have submitted at least four items to that group that have never made it out on the nets network. It appears as if others faced with the same problem are submitting directly to net.unix-wizards which in turn has others complaining about submitting directly to it. I hope that I have no problem following common protocols/practices, AS LONG AS THEY WORK. I personally find the problems with 'unix-wizards' to be much more serious than any problems with net.jokes.q. If I have a hard time 'hacking' my system, few jokes are funny. I have just seen some test messages coming from fa.unix-wizards. I hope this is a sign of a return. Now if only my messages are there! 3) Speaking as one who is not going to USENIX, because I don't care to, (I could get a paid trip if I asked) I am sure it will be difficult to get a majority feeling in a few days, and the discussion will be back on news, although the different opinions will no doubt be firmly crystallized. I only say this to lead into the next item. But before that... For those who want to wait till the meeting to discuss this. I submit that if it takes an across the country meeting to settle the issues at hand, we are in big trouble (see end of this message). Also, for those worried about the number of machines effecting the respect and influence of the each site/speaker, if anything the in person meeting will have the most problems. It's the old loudest talker and prettiest face that sways opinions. I would think that this neutral medium would be an ideal place to judge only on content, not on packaging. 4) There was a recent comment that said words to the effect of: 'To bad we cannot take a vote over the news network'. Personally I would like to see a mechanism implemented to allow for automatic opinion polling over USENET, both signed and unsigned. Multiple choice questions could be automatically sent out, answered, and returned and tabulated. I feel that an important part of this network is to let sites get data on a range of topics, and what is so 'slick' about it is that we can get it from people in the same boat. Obviously the current mechanisms can support this, however it is rather informal, and I am sure that alot of people have comments/opinions that they would rather not voice openly, it's like amateur and C.B. radio, alot of listeners, few talkers. Soon it could be: You have mail You have news You have a poll For anyone who has a similar feeling, I would be willing to discuss how to go about implementing such a system, built on top of the current one. 5) Personally I have problems with the following suggestion, however, has anyone thought of encrypting news catagories as a means of restricting access? If 10 sites want to pass around net.blowup.BTL and some find the contents objectionable, encryption might be a solution. It's like mailing in a plain brown wrapper. (Now I can wait for the screams) Thank you all for listening to me. Personally I like the current name, and methods of starting newsgroups, although the 1 week required to pick a name (net.circus... net.bigtop... net.bozo) is a bit much. Perhaps the more important question is where is this facility leading in terms of the overall intrusion of computers into our lives. As time goes on, other networks, with different charters will interface to USENET (???) through special 'gateways', adding to the political fun. I have already noticed that the amount of non-technical news is starting to swamp the straight Unix stuff. To the bean counters, is there any real difference between passing a cookie recipe across the country and a dirty joke? It is all 'non-essential' (or is it?). How much time does the average news reader/writer spend with news each day? Greg Ordy ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.