Motion to the FreeNet Board of Directors

That the FreeNet export some or all of the ncf.* newsgroups to the rest of
the local community via existing mechanisms.  (Those existing mechanisms
are an nntp feed with cunews, and the uucp connection from cunews to
revcan.) 

Advantages:

· The mission statement emphasizes community networking, thus implying the
whole community; not just the 40 000 currently registered on FreeNet.
· Reduce demand for phone lines.
· It would put less load on freenet-news.  If freenet-news exported to
cunews, and so on, the existing news distribution path could be used for
those who wish to grab those groups.  Each person reading news on the
FreeNet individually places a load on freenet-news, as opposed to groups
of people putting on a similar load (ie., more people on each connection
and thus less connections).
· More convenient to those with alternative online access, especially
those with off-line readers in place.
· Make the FreeNet a better net citizen
· Help attract and retain more technical volunteers.  We have lost some
very skilled volunteers based on their convictions that NCF should not be
a closed shop.
· an experimental text-to-http converter already makes non-newsgroup
FreeNet data  available to external Web users

Concerns:

· Having a set of local-only groups is very useful to our members. The
Usenet system lets you target content on the basis of some criterion, be
it geographic, political, or topic. The NCF groups, like our active NCF
users, have a distinct flavour that is very important.  Targeting
specific users or interests creates something special here that is worth
preserving.
· The ncf.* newsgroups constitute a valuable resource for attracting and
keeping an active contributing membership. To read the NCF groups you have
to login to the NCF. This allows us to ask for donations at registration
time and thereafter.
· People from outside would see the newsgroups but not the context
· Unless we restrict posting to ncf members, volume of posting in each
group would increase, making the group less accessible, and adding to
system load, and eventually increasing our Onet fees.
· People from outside might tend to be users but
not contributors -- talk but no help
· People have the option to telnet in, even if it is very slow, if they
really want NCF groups.


Technical Considerations:

This simply requires a change to the news configuration file on
freenet-news in order to allow the export of the newsgroups that are on
the Freenet.


Broader Issues:

Who is the 'community' that the Freenet serves?  Our mission statement
says it is the people and organizations of this region.  Our priorities,
developed during the summer, but not formally adopted, say:

· Individuals who would not otherwise have access to telecomputing
· Non-profit organizations that serve the community
· Other individuals living in the region
· Individuals and organizations with an interest in the region.

People who dial into Achilles and run local BBS's might fall into the
third priority group, but they already have the same or better access to
ncf as anyone else.



Variations:

Read Only


Motion by BrettDelmage/Al Seaman:   Moved that NCF will implement a block
on the external news feed that will prevent the delivery of external
postings to the "ncf" hierarchy of  newsgroups.

Friendly amendment by Chris Hawley:   "Moved that the NCF will implement a
block on the external news feed that will prevent external postings to
newsgroups in the 'ncf' hierarchy except those which have been designated
'writable' by the sending site. [ by the board? EC? ]"

Marking the exported ncf newsgroups read only would ensure that only NCF
members could post to those groups. You would still have to login to
FreeNet to post.

This would require that ALL the systems that receive the groups
cooperate.  We could mark them as read-only, but every other system would
have to do the same for the scheme to work.

We could not accept any incoming posts to ncf.* groups, making the
external nature read-only from our point of view, but then we would risk a
situation where there is traffic on the groups that NCF users do not see.


Off-line Newsreader

An off-line reader wouldreduce load on the phone lines, but increase CPU
load.  Right now the target is one CPU for 100 phone lines... this is
going to have to increase to at least 1 CPU for 50 phone lines (to make
the cost $1250/line instead of $1000).
Export some  ncf  Newsgroups based on a vote by participants

The scope of individual newsgroups could become rather confusing.


Some of the ncf.* newsgroups could be converted  to ott.* newsgroups.

Many ncf.* groups could have been created under the ott.*, and in some
cases ont.* and can.* hierarchies. There could be a broad range of very
active ott.* groups carried on the NCF and many other systems in town. 
Perhaps we should be educating our members on the role that ott.* groups
could be taking, and have a procedure where NCF members can request that
ott.* groups be added just like they can request NCF groups. SIGS could
have the choice to decide whether they wish to be carried outside of NCF
or not.

The mechanism for creating a new ott.* newsgroup is to post a proposal to
ott.general and see if it gets the support of the community. Few proposals
succeed and none get rubber-stamped. Newsgroup subjects for which valid
and suitable newsgroups already exist elsewhere would not be approved.  We
would need to make good cases that the discussion is particularly
pertinent and unique to Ottawa.


Create  a can.freenet.* hierarchy

This approach would retain ncfs visibility and identity as the source of
the newsgroup.


--
Julie Chahal
President, InfoMagic Services  .....information & management consulting
Vice President, National Capital FreeNet		Voice: (613) 226-3915
Trustee, Nepean Public Library				Fax:   226-7817