Alternatives to a local Usenet server

[Una Smith]

Foteos Macrides <macrides at sci.wfeb.edu> wrote >>> and >
Una Smith <smith-una at yale.edu> wrote >>

>>[Fote:  your lines are too long to fit in my newsreader without
>>wrapping.]

>	Set your column width to 80.  Our editor sends maximum 78
>character lines (but I'll set it to 64 for this message 8-).

Lines that start out 78 characters long, then get several
layers of included-text markes added, end up too long.  ;-)

...
>	It's not necessary to use a WWW server.  All that's
>necessary is for the client's host to have access to an NNTP
>server to which the environment variable NNTPSERVER can be set.

That's what I had in mind in my original article on this thread,
but you mentioned a WWW server as an additional option, and I 
thought that perhaps you meant a telnet session on net.bio.net
that was linked to their WWW server, that would run only a news
client (with access to their news server).

...
>the user could simply pass a news URL on the command line, e.g.,
>if using lynx:
>
>	lynx news:bionet.software.www

Does this involve installing a news client (with NNTP server
daemon underneath)?  Or something else?


>We have no need of such a service (we have a news server which
>carries the bionet hierarchy), but yes, there are hundreds of
>thousands of Internet sites which don't have access to news.

According to the "arbitron" data, there are over 100,000 hosts
that get Usenet but don't include bionet.*.  This is not a
problem for those sites that already get bionet.*, but it is
a problem for others that *want* bionet.*.  That's because if
the site that provides *your* site with a Usenet feed doesn't
get bionet.*, then you have to talk *them* into getting it.

This is especially severe for those people who are at sites
that do not have full Internet access (thus no NNTP):  this
includes a disproportionate number of sites in less-developed
countries, which are now rapidly emerging on the electronic
scene.

For years and years, the same people who had e-mail have 
generally also had Usenet.  Now, e-mail is spreading very
rapidly to the rest of the world, but Usenet is taking a
lot longer to get there.  For these *new* participants in
bionet.*, we are creating *extra* work with every percent
of lost propagation.  They are the least well-equipped to
accomplish this work, because they lack the expertise that
we have in abundance (and are not putting to full use).

-- 
	Una Smith			smith-una at yale.edu

Department of Biology, Yale University, New Haven, CT  06520-8104  USA