On 6/8/2014 12:38 PM, John Levine wrote: > In article <5393423a.2000...@gmail.com> you write: >> On 6/7/2014 6:38 PM, Stephen J. Turnbull wrote: >>> I don't know what the problem that prevented netnews from >>> obsoleting mailing lists is >> >> At base, netnews and mailing lists are entirely different kinds of human >> communication services. The critical construct that highlights the >> difference is: subscriptions. > > Netnews has subscriptions. On the client side you can say which > newsgroups you want to read, and on the server side you can say > which users are allowed to read which groups.
Different concept of subscription. You are describing local distribution controls. Since netnews is a global process with no concept of global access control, it is fundamentally different than the sort of centralized control embodied in a mailing list subscription. The mailing list distribution model is central control, with multicast to subscribees. The netnews distribution model is flooding distribution to whoever participates. That local distribution controls might happen in addition is just that: local policy. >> Really, the participation and scaling characteristic differences between >> bulletin boards -- which are essentially broadcast -- versus mailing >> lists -- which are multicast, are huge. > > Huh? Usenet is multicast, with each server sending messages to other > servers it knows. It uses a flooding algorithm, to make sure that a message from any server gets to all the others. Mailing lists have no built-in concept of feeding other servers. It's an entirely centralized model. > I suppose it's broadcast in the sense that > everything goes everywhere with no overall control. Yeah, that's kinda what broadcast means. > One of the reasons mailing lists are useful is that there are list > managers who can control who gets to post to the list and eject > trolls. Moderated newsgroups sort of do that, although they have > other issues. Exactly. As I said, fundamental differences. d/ -- Dave Crocker Brandenburg InternetWorking bbiw.net _______________________________________________ dmarc mailing list dmarc@ietf.org https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/dmarc
