From: "Timothy C. May" <tcmay@got.net>
Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 09:29:58 -0800 (PST)
To: Alan Barrett <reece@taz.nceye.net>
Subject: Re: Anyone have the complete info on CP list alternatives?
Message-ID: <199702181729.JAA07983@toad.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


At 5:35 PM +0200 2/18/97, Alan Barrett wrote:
>On 18 Feb 1997, Bryan Reece wrote:
>> Filtering out other gateways' messages will reduce load at
>> the possible expense of delay (assuming a smallish network of news
>> servers that feed each other the list; obviously the message will
>> flood the majordomo net before it floods the real usenet unless
>> something is seriously broken).
>
>Why is it obvious that mail propagation will be faster than news
>propagation?  News propagation times of small numbers of seconds are not
>at all uncommon.

News propagation in seconds to your _local server_, or to _distant_
servers? Articles I post do indeed appear "immediately" on my local site,
but certainly not so immediately on distant sites.

The Usenet is thousands of news servers, maybe tens of thousands, and news
feeds take a while...small articles are mixed in with hundreds of megabytes
a day of binaries. A percolation process, as opposed to a point-to-point
process for e-mail.

And I know that my site sometimes does not see articles for tens of hours,
even days, after the initial act of distribution. (Sometimes articles
appear more than a week late...presumably they've been lost to mu site on
some railroad siding someplace.)

This is why people say "News is slower than mail."

--Tim May



Just say "No" to "Big Brother Inside"
We got computers, we're tapping phone lines, I know that that ain't allowed.
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
tcmay@got.net  408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
Higher Power: 2^1398269     | black markets, collapse of governments.
"National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."