Subject: What is Usenet?
From: [email-masked] (Gene Spafford)
Date: 25 Jul 91 23:15:52 GMT
Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.admin

Original from: [email-masked] (Chip Salzenberg)
[Most recent change: 23 Jul 1991 by [email-masked] (Gene Spafford)]

The first thing to understand about Usenet is that it is widely
misunderstood.  Every day on Usenet, the "blind men and the elephant"
phenomenon is evident, in spades.  In the opinion of the author, more
flame wars arise because of a lack of understanding of the nature of
Usenet than from any other source.  And consider that such flame wars
arise, of necessity, among people who are on Usenet.  Imagine, then,
how poorly understood Usenet must be by those outside!

Any essay on the nature of Usenet cannot ignore the erroneous
impressions held by many Usenet users.  Therefore, this article will
treat falsehoods first.  Keep reading for truth.  (Beauty, alas, is
not relevant to Usenet.)

WHAT USENET IS NOT
------------------
 1. Usenet is not an organization.

    Usenet has no central authority.  In fact, it has no central
    anything.  There is a vague notion of "upstream" and "downstream"
    related to the direction of high-volume news flow.  It follows
    that, to the extent that "upstream" sites decide what traffic
    they will carry for their "downstream" neighbors, that "upstream"
    sites have some influence on their neighbors.  But such influence
    is usually easy to circumvent, and heavy-handed manipulation
    typically results in a backlash of resentment.

 2. Usenet is not a democracy.

    A democracy can be loosely defined as "government of the people,
    by the people, for the people."  However, as explained above,
    Usenet is not an organization, and only an organization can be run
    as a democracy.  Even a democracy must be organized, for if it
    lacks a means of enforcing the peoples' wishes, then it may as
    well not exist.

    Some people wish that Usenet were a democracy.  Many people
    pretend that it is.  Both groups are sadly deluded.

 3. Usenet is not fair.

    After all, who shall decide what's fair?  For that matter, if
    someone is behaving unfairly, who's going to stop him?  Neither
    you nor I, that's certain.

 4. Usenet is not a right.

    Some people misunderstand their local right of "freedom of speech"
    to mean that they have a legal right to use others' computers to
    say what they wish in whatever way they wish, and the owners of
    said computers have no right to stop them.

    Those people are wrong.  Freedom of speech also means freedom not
    to speak; if I choose not to use my computer to aid your speech,
    that is my right.  Freedom of the press belongs to those who own
    one.

 5. Usenet is not a public utility.

    Some Usenet sites are publicly funded or subsidized.  Most of
    them, by plain count, are not.  There is no government monopoly
    on Usenet, and little or no control.

 6. Usenet is not a commercial network.

    Many Usenet sites are academic or government organizations; in
    fact, Usenet originated in academia.  Therefore, there is a Usenet
    custom of keeping commercial traffic to a minimum.  If such
    commercial traffic is generally considered worth carrying, then it
    may be grudgingly tolerated.  Even so, it is usually separated
    somehow from non-commercial traffic; see "comp.newprod."

 7. Usenet is not the Internet.

    The Internet is a wide-ranging network, parts of which are
    subsidized by various governments.  The Internet carries many
    kinds of traffic; Usenet is only one of them.  And the Internet is
    only one of the various networks carrying Usenet traffic.

 8. Usenet is not a UUCP network.

    UUCP is a protocol (some might say "protocol suite," but that's a
    technical point) for sending data over point-to-point connections,
    typically using dialup modems.  Usenet is only one of the various
    kinds of traffic carried via UUCP, and UUCP is only one of the
    various transports carrying Usenet traffic.

 9. Usenet is not a UNIX network, nor even an ASCII network.  It is
    also most certainly not just an American network.

    Don't assume that everyone is using "rn" on a UNIX machine.  There
    are Vaxen running VMS, IBM mainframes, Amigas, and MS-DOS PCs
    reading and posting to Usenet.  And, yes, some of them use
    (shudder) EBCDIC.  Ignore them if you like, but they're out there.
    Some sites use special character sets for non-English postings,
    too, and even if they use the same character set, realize that
    your words might mean different things in other cultures.

10. Usenet is not software.

    There are dozens of software packages used at various sites to
    transport and read Usenet articles.  So no one program or package
    can be called "the Usenet software."

    Software designed to support Usenet traffic can be (and is) used
    for other kinds of communication, usually without risk of mixing
    the two.  Such private communication networks are typically kept
    distinct from Usenet by the invention of newsgroup names different
    from the universally-recognized ones.

Well, enough negativity.

WHAT USENET IS
--------------
Usenet is the set of machines that exchange articles tagged with one
or more universally-recognized labels, called "newsgroups" (or
"groups" for short).

(Note that the term "newsgroup" is correct, while "area," "base,"
"board," "bboard," "conference," "round table," "SIG," etc.  are
incorrect.  If you want to be understood, be accurate.)

DIVERSITY
---------
If the above definition of Usenet sounds vague, that's because it is.

It is almost impossible to generalize over all Usenet sites in any
non-trivial way.  Usenet encompasses government agencies, large
universities, high schools, businesses of all sizes, home computers of
all descriptions, etc, etc.

CONTROL
-------
Every administrator controls his own site.  No one has any real
control over any site but his own.

The administrator gets his power from the owner of the system he
administers.  As long as the owner is happy with the job the
administrator is doing, he can do whatever he pleases, up to and
including cutting off Usenet entirely.  Them's the breaks.

PROPAGATION
-----------
In the old days, when UUCP over long-distance dialup lines was the
dominant means of article transmission, a few well-connected sites had
real influence in determining which newsgroups would be carried where.
Those sites called themselves "the backbone."

But things have changed.  Nowadays, even the smallest Internet site
has connectivity the likes of which the backbone admin of yesteryear
could only dream.  In addition, in the U.S., the advent of cheaper
long-distance calls and high-speed modems has made long-distance
Usenet feeds thinkable for smaller companies.  There is only one
pre-eminent UUCP transport site today in the U.S., namely UUNET.  But
UUNET isn't a player in the propagation wars, because it never refuses
any traffic -- it gets paid by the minute, after all; and besides, to
refuse based on content would jeopardize its legal status as an
enhanced service provider.

All of the above applies to the U.S.  In Europe, different cost
structures favored the creation of strictly controlled hierarchical
organizations with central registries.  This is all very unlike the
traditional mode of U.S. sites (pick a name, get the software, get a
feed, you're on).  Europe's "benign monopolies," long uncontested, now
face competition from looser organizations patterned after the U.S.
model.

NEWSGROUP CREATION
------------------
As discussed above, Usenet is not a democracy.  Nevertheless, the
current most popular way to create a new newsgroup involves a "vote"
to determine popular support for (and opposition to) a proposed
newsgroup.  The document that describes this procedure is entitled
"How To Create A New Newsgroup."  Its common name, however, is "the
guidelines."

If you follow the guidelines, it is probable that your group will be
created and will be widely propagated.

HOWEVER: Because of the nature of Usenet, there is no way for any user
to enforce the results of a newsgroup vote (or any other decision, for
that matter).  Therefore, for your new newsgroup to be propagated
widely, you must not only follow the letter of the guidelines; you
must also follow its spirit.  And you must not allow even a whiff of
shady dealings or dirty tricks to mar the vote.

So, you may ask: How is a new user supposed to know anything about the
"spirit" of the guidelines?  Obviously, he can't.  This fact leads
inexorably to the following recommendation:

 >> If you are a new user, don't try to create a new newsgroup. <<

If you have a good newsgroup idea, then read the "news.groups"
newsgroup for a while (six months, at least) to find out how things
work.  If you're too impatient to wait six months, then you really
need to learn; read "news.groups" for a year instead.  If you just
can't wait, find a Usenet old hand to run the vote for you.

Readers may think this advice unnecessarily strict.  Ignore it at your
peril.  It is embarrassing to speak before learning.  It is foolish to
jump into a society you don't understand with your mouth open.  And it
is futile to try to force your will on people who can tune you out
with the press of a key.

IF YOU ARE UNHAPPY...
---------------------
Property rights being what they are, there is no higher authority on
Usenet than the people who own the machines on which Usenet traffic is
carried.  If the owner of the machine you use says, "We will not carry
alt.sex on this machine," and you are not happy with that order, you
have no Usenet recourse.  What can we outsiders do, after all?

That doesn't mean you are without options.  Depending on the nature of
your site, you may have some internal political recourse.  Or you
might find external pressure helpful.  Or, with a minimal investment,
you can get a feed of your own from somewhere else. Computers capable
of taking Usenet feeds are down in the $500 range now, and
UNIX-capable boxes are going for under $2000, and there are at least
two UNIX lookalikes in the $100 price range.

No matter what, though, appealing to "Usenet" won't help.  Even if
those who read such an appeal are sympathetic to your cause, they will
almost certainly have even less influence at your site than you do.

By the same token, if you don't like what some user at another site is
doing, only the administrator and/or owner of that site have any
authority to do anything about it.  Persuade them that the user in
question is a problem for them, and they might do something (if they
feel like it).

If the user in question is the administrator or owner of the site from
which he or she posts, forget it; you can't win.  Arrange for your
newsreading software to ignore articles from him or her if you can,
and chalk one up to experience.

WORDS TO LIVE BY #1:
 USENET AS SOCIETY
--------------------
  Those who have never tried electronic communication may not be aware
  of what a "social skill" really is.  One social skill that must be
  learned, is that other people have points of view that are not only
  different, but *threatening*, to your own.  In turn, your opinions may
  be threatening to others.  There is nothing wrong with this.  Your
  beliefs need not be hidden behind a facade, as happens with
  face-to-face conversation.  Not everybody in the world is a bosom
  buddy, but you can still have a meaningful conversation with them.
  The person who cannot do this lacks in social skills.

                                     -- Nick Szabo

WORDS TO LIVE BY #2:
 USENET AS ANARCHY  
--------------------
  Anarchy means having to put up with things that really piss you off.

                                     -- Unknown

-- 
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida  Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-1398
Internet:  [email-masked]	phone:  (317) 494-7825