🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <466i1o$e9i@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
Cyronwode <cyronwode@aol.com> wrote:
>bei@io.com (Bob Izenberg) wrote: 
>
>> Now, if you were a system administrator, and you had to
>> choose whether to make a service available to the Net at
>> large, and to commit your time to maintain it, how would
>> the events that we're discussing affect your decision?
>
>Good question. My answer is in 5 stages of increasing limitation. It does
>not include shutting down the gateway. 
>
>(1) 
>
>If my system had the capacity to handle the current volume of
>mail-to-usenet traffic from Compuserve, Prodigy, Netcom, Delphi and the
>like, i think i would have accepted the offender's apology, talked things
>over with AOL, and gone on from there. 

Okay, that's a big if, don't you think?  Do you know what that volume is?
Can you _roughly_ guess?  Pick any way of measuring it that you like.  
Ccan you think of some ways you might measure it?  What are they?

>(Incidentally, i got a message from Zac at AOL the day before the gateway
>was closed saying that the newsgroup admin (Bob) was on vacation but that
>they hoped to resolve the situation with Fletcher on Monday. Fletcher
>closed the gateway before that happened.) 

And I sure can't blame him.

>If i (as hypothetical system administrator again) could not get AOL to

Hypothetical, eh?  You don't say.

>promise to police their spam (although, you will recall that Fletcher said
>in his adieu that they ARE paying attention to it now), i would write out
>a bounced mail messge to be sent in response to the "average of 10 per
>day" messages the gateway received from the AOL domain. ("Your message is
>being returned because due to prior abuse, AOL and UT have agreed that the
>cs.utexas.edu mail-to-usenet gateway is not open to senders from AOL until
>further notice.")

I've got a great idea.  Why don't you offer to write the software to send
that bounce message to everyone now?  You could contribute it as the
beginning of an apology.  You know.  Just give it away to all the other
people out there who have a right to it, and let the people who are 
working on filling the void left by the gateway's closing make use of it
as they see fit.  That sounds cooperative, doesn't it?

>(2)
>
>If i felt that my gateway was overtaxed with messages from .com users in
>general, i would have written a bounced mail message and henceforward
>would have *politely* bounced ALL messages from .com domains. ("Your
>message is being returned because the cs.utexas.edu mail-to-usenet gateway
>is not open to senders from commercial internet service providers.")

What if it was ONLY being taxed by people at aol.com, prodigy.com, 
compuserve.com, and delphi.com, and not at all by any of the others?
You would cut off access to millions of users because a few people acted up?
Wait -- it seems I just heard someone complaining about that very idea,
now who was it....?

>(3)
>
>If i felt i was still doing too much work, i would have written a bounced
>mail message and henceforward would have *politely* bounced ALL messages
>not originating at UT, other Texas .edu sites, or other .edu sites around
>the country. ("Your message is being returned because the cs.utexas.edu
>mail-to-usenet gateway is only open to senders .edu sites.")

And, as a hypothetical administrator, you have a good grasp of what would
be involved in making all those changes, is that correct?

Furthermore, you would willingly engage in top-level  "domainism"??

>(4)
>
>If i felt i was still doing too much work, i would have written a bounced
>mail message and henceforward would have *politely* bounced ALL messages
>not originating at UT, or other Texas .edu sites. ("Your message is being
>returned because the cs.utexas.edu mail-to-usenet gateway is only open to
>senders from .edu sites in Texas.")

At which point you've spent how much time going over the code, now?

>(5) 
>
>If i felt i was still doing too much work, i would have written a bounced
>mail message and henceforward would have *politely* bounced ALL messages
>not originating at UT. ("Your message is being returned because the
>cs.utexas.edu mail-to-usenet gateway is only open to senders from
>utexas.edu.")

And this adds up to, in your estimation, about how much time?  How on
EARTH does rewriting your gateway again and again add up to less work
than refusing to accept stuff from people who have proven to cause you
work already?

I'm just wondering if, as an editor, you take the time to critique every
piece you ever receive, offer constructive criticism, and send it back
nicely if you're rejecting it, even at the expense of finishing the work
you had to get done by a deadline in order to get paid.

I think it would be polite if you did.  I'm not an editor, but if I just
happened to feel like making use of some of your time, and you didn't 
want to give it, I'm afraid it would really piss me off.  ;->

-- 
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