alt.cypherpunks

Hey, folks,

I thought all you had to do to create an alt.group was to have a news admin
somewhere just make a group; send out a control message of somekind. I
thought that alt groups didn't have to go through a charter, or voting
process, or anything else. They just happened.

Then, everyone just has to tell their local news admin that they went to
see it, or they can wait until their news admin sees it flying by, and adds
it to the available groups list at his own discretion.

It's not like we want comp.cypherpunks or something, with a voting process,
right?

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga





-----------------
Robert Hettinga (rah@shipwright.com), Philodox
e$, 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"Never attribute to conspiracy what can be
explained by stupidity." -- Jerry Pournelle
The e$ Home Page: http://www.shipwright.com/rah/
FC97: Anguilla, anyone? http://www.ai/fc97/

> Hey, folks,
> 
> I thought all you had to do to create an alt.group was to have a news admin
> somewhere just make a group; send out a control message of somekind. I
> thought that alt groups didn't have to go through a charter, or voting
> process, or anything else. They just happened.
> 
> Then, everyone just has to tell their local news admin that they went to
> see it, or they can wait until their news admin sees it flying by, and adds
> it to the available groups list at his own discretion.
> 
> It's not like we want comp.cypherpunks or something, with a voting process,
> right?
> 

It's not quite that simple.  While a "Big 7" group requires CFD, charter
and voting, once you pass tthose hurdles you're virtually guaranteed good
propagation.  alt has no "set" creartion procedure, but your group will
not receive good propagation unless the powers that be "approve" of the 
idea.

In this case, the people you have to convince are the news admins who must
permit your control message to be honoured; time was most sites ran on
autopilot, but joke and badly-named groups mean that most news admins
now drop most newgroup messages on the floor.  These people hang out in
alt.config, and you should propose the group's creation there, followed
by a couple of weeks of discussion, hopefully featuring many more 
supportive messages than non-supportive ones.  After that, a newgroup 
message stands a much better chance.

> Cheers,
> Bob Hettinga
> 
> 
>

Hip hip,

John P. 
john@huiac.apana.org.au

Jeremiah A Blatz wrote:
> alt.cypherpunks has been newgroup'ed, and I belive rm'grouped. Smart,
> consiencous newsadmins probably did not honor the rmgroup, as
> alt.cypherpunks should be acceptable, but most newsadmins are too
> overworked to actually look at most of the crap that comes through.

> Therefore, it would be a Good Thing to continue any discussion on
> alt.config, and convince any cabal'ers who rmgroup it to re-new it.
> Sending out boosters every couple of weeks wouldn't hurt, either.

  So, basically, you're saying that the flight from censorship should
be toward a new CypherPunk 'home' where one is effectively censored
automatically unless one kisses the ass of a Cabal?

Toto

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Toto <toto@sk.sympatico.ca> reminds me while I've killfiled him:
>   So, basically, you're saying that the flight from censorship should
> be toward a new CypherPunk 'home' where one is effectively censored
> automatically unless one kisses the ass of a Cabal?

Yup. You're begging resources, deal with it. We didn't kiss John
Gillmore's ass, and he decided that he was tired of the shit and
stopped letting us squat on his land. If we were paying him for the
use of toad, he maybe wouldn't have the right to yank it so suddenly,
but we weren't, so it's his call. Same with usenet. The "cabal" has
high reputation capital. News admins the world over trust them. One
might say that they deserve the respect they get, but that is
immaterial to the discussion. the fact is that people who donate
resources to usenet trust the cabal.

Unless you have a contractual relationship, you're begging, and you
have to convince your benefactors to give you stuff. If you have a
different model for a world economy, feel free to post it. 

Jer

"standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew
 why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole

PS. Of course, the cabal didn't rmgroup alt.cypherpunks, thus showing
that they do have some good sence yet.
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John Pearson <john@cognac.apana.org.au> writes:
> In this case, the people you have to convince are the news admins who must
> permit your control message to be honoured; time was most sites ran on
> autopilot, but joke and badly-named groups mean that most news admins
> now drop most newgroup messages on the floor.  These people hang out in
> alt.config, and you should propose the group's creation there, followed
> by a couple of weeks of discussion, hopefully featuring many more 
> supportive messages than non-supportive ones.  After that, a newgroup 
> message stands a much better chance.

alt.cypherpunks has been newgroup'ed, and I belive rm'grouped. Smart,
consiencous newsadmins probably did not honor the rmgroup, as
alt.cypherpunks should be acceptable, but most newsadmins are too
overworked to actually look at most of the crap that comes through.
For example, it hasn't received any messages on my news server,
probably because the one upstream removed it. 

Therefore, it would be a Good Thing to continue any discussion on
alt.config, and convince any cabal'ers who rmgroup it to re-new it.
Sending out boosters every couple of weeks wouldn't hurt, either. 

alt.cypherpunks'less,
Jer

"standing on top of the world/ never knew how you never could/ never knew
 why you never could live/ innocent life that everyone did" -Wormhole

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Mr. Blatz writes:

> alt.cypherpunks has been newgroup'ed, and I belive rm'grouped. Smart,
> consiencous newsadmins probably did not honor the rmgroup, as
> alt.cypherpunks should be acceptable, but most newsadmins are too
> overworked to actually look at most of the crap that comes through.
> For example, it hasn't received any messages on my news server,
> probably because the one upstream removed it. 

I haven't seen any rmgroups for alt.cypherpunks.  Paul Bradley's
newgroup for alt.cypherpunks is nowhere to be found, but Mike Duvos'
newgroup made it onto the Net, and was reposted the next day by 
usenet@news.myriad.ml.org.

Meanwhile, Paul Bradley seems to have finally figured out newgrouping
and has created...

        alt.cypherpunks.announce
        alt.cypherpunks.social
        alt.cypherpunks.technical

and, of course...

        alt.fan.paul.bradley

The latter has been rmgrouped because it was not discussed in 
alt.config. 

I might suggest that deliberately tweeking the whiskers of the Cabal by
gratuitous newgrouping is unlikely to bode well for alt.cypherpunks. 

--
Eric Michael Cordian 0+
O:.T:.O:. Mathematical Munitions Division
"Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law"