Too much cross-posting?

[Scott Hazen Mueller]

In article <688 at whizz.uucp> bbh at whizz.UUCP (Bud Hovell) writes:
>I want to be clear in my fundamental question about this subject: why are we
>setting up an ALTERNATE network? Having a Trailblazer is nice - do you think 
>*most* sites have that capability? Is that the price that is expected in
>order to gain routine access? Does one have to buy a Magic Decoder Ring and
>learn the secret handshake, also? This is starting to sound like a Mason's
>meeting, not a libertarian forum for sharing of information.

First, I guess that a little history is necessary, in order to try to answer
your question.  Per the list of alternate newsgroup heirarchies from Gene
Spafford at Purdue:

"Another such hierarchy is the "unix-pc" distribution.  This consists of
groups devoted to users of the AT&T Unix-PC.  These groups were
originated as a mailing list started by three owners of AT&T Unix PCs:
Gary Smith, David Dalton and Kathy Vincent.  As the list expanded, it
turned into a newsgroup hierarchy, and more and more sites began to
carry the groups; hundreds of sites now carry these groups."

Unix-pc.* originated at a time when all groups were net.*, mod.* and fa.*.
Back then, it was probably the *only* non-standard heirarchy; the situation
with regard to news transmission was also a lot different, with the backbone
being composed of sites that were sending news via fairly slow modems.  It
made a lot of sense to the Unix-PC folks to set up a separate network and
newsgroup heirarchy.

The result at this point in time is that we have our own little network,
and quite frankly a lot of "local" control of the net.  We don't have to
petition the net.gods for a new group, nor do we have to go through the
2-week+30-day discussion/voting period needed to create a new group in the
mainstream Usenet.  Like the alt.net, we carry our own weight; sometimes
this means that some extra effort may be required to get a feed.

Usenet is *not* a free ride.  Nor is it a "libertarian forum for sharing of
information."  It is paid for by the business and government sites that
comprise it.  If you want a certain net group badly enough, you should be
prepared to take the measure necessary to get it.  *Anyone* can get UUNET;
any net site can get a Trailblazer at a discount if you have a registered
domain.

>Look. Either you define the validity of moving this group to the main newsfeed
>based on:
>	* NUMBER OF READERS, or......
>	* VOLUME OF TRAFFIC

Okay, some hard facts:

       +-- Estimated total number of people who read the group, worldwide.
       |     +-- Actual number of readers in sampled population
       |     |     +-- Propagation: how many sites receive this group at all
       |     |     |      +-- Recent traffic (messages per month)
       |     |     |      |     +-- Recent traffic (kilobytes per month)
       |     |     |      |     |      +-- Crossposting percentage
       |     |     |      |     |      |    +-- Cost ratio: $US/month/reader
       |     |     |      |     |      |    |       +-- Share: % of newsreaders
       |     |     |      |     |      |    |       |   who read this group.
       V     V     V      V     V      V    V       V
112 14000   670   95%   132  243.9    39%  0.03    2.7%  comp.sys.att
423   590    29    3%   202  321.0    59%  0.03    0.1%  unix-pc.general
427   480    24    2%    16  240.7    67%  0.03    0.1%  unix-pc.sources

As a reasonable estimate, unix-pc.* might well go to 18000 (estimated)
readers if a straight-line extrapolation makes sense.  I'm not at all
confident, though, that the "small-town" atmosphere that makes unix-pc work
as well as it has would survive the mainstream Usenet.

>In other words, the continuance of the status of this group as an off-brand,
>tough-to-get service cannot *possibly* be based on similarity of treatment
>to other groups that no one even questions should be in the official feed.
>So what *is* the basis for this approach?

No, the basis is that unix-pc.* has nothing to do with the main Usenet except
for the use of the same transport mechanism and overlap between the two
networks at many sites.  Do you complain if you cannot receive (for example)
alt.fusion at your site and say that *all* Usenet sites should carry it?  I
should hope not; if you do, you're pissing in the wind...  :-)

Frankly, I would just as soon see unix-pc.* continue in the same vein that it
has.  It is not a service provided by the Usenet backbone to Unix-PC users;
it is a cooperative venture between all of us for the benefit of all of us.
Even though I have traded my 3B1 in for a (much) larger system, I continue
to carry the newsgroups and provide the redistribution mailing list.

It's called the "spirit of Usenet", and it's the reason that people like
Rick Adams, Gene Spafford and Mel Pleasant keep on plugging away at providing
the services that they provide.  It works best when we all do our part.
-- 
Scott Hazen Mueller| scott at zorch.UU.NET (pyramid|tolerant|uunet)!zorch!scott
685 Balfour Drive  | (408) 298-6213    |Send mail to fusion-request at zorch.UU.NET
San Jose, CA 95111 |No dsclmr, my cmptr|for sci.physics.fusion digests via email