It was like that back in the early 80's. I actually remember a time
*before* complaints about SNR, hard as that may be to believe today.
You are correct that the tools keep adjusting -- but for crying out
loud, we now have people trying to manage servers with 20,000 newsgroups
and RAID arrays of 9 GByte disks with dual-processor... at some point,
it becomes necessary to step back and wonder if the system hasn't
exceeded the bounds of the model. Usenet wasn't designed for this;
NNTP wasn't designed for this; the newsreaders weren't designed for this.
Much to their credit, software authors have done some amazing things
to compensate (e.g. the latest trn) but it seems to me that Usenet
has now reached the point that all software systems reach: time to
throw it away and start over, using what was learned to redesign.
I don't necessarily think Usenet II is the best possible approach;
but it seems to be the only viable one around at the moment, so I think
it's worth considering and watching closely.
---Rsk
Rich Kulawiec
rsk@itw.com