tradeoffs: gateways vs. mailing lists

[Kris Kugel]

My basic objection with a unixpc mailing list is with efficency through
the net.  For example, the machines near the mail list's source
will have to collectively handle (N * articles) uucp transfers, where N
is number of people on the mailing list.  Compare this with the cost
of news articles distributed and stored on machines where they are unread.
Mail can be *much* more expensive in uucp transfers for a group
with wide readership.

The usefulness of reading the net goes down as the noise level goes up;
duplicate articles are a form of noise.  Rather than gatewaying to
comp.sys.att, I'd like to see the unix-pc groups gatewayed to
comp.sys.unix-pc and ...unix-pc.src instead, and then sites need
only carry the articles once.
I would like standard unix-pc group names to exist, but I would prefer
the names to match the current naming scheme on the network.

(sorry for notes users, but they should be running two-way gateways
 mapping external long group names to local unique 14-char names anyway.
 people who don't like long names can do the same)

	Kris A. Kugel
	Storage Tek:    ...{ uunet!nbires, hao, ihnp4 }!stcvax!stc-auts!kak