From: rynes@slc3.ins.cwru.edu (Edward M. Rynes - M.E.D./P.o.D.)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Court Rulings Hierarchy
Date: 11 Dec 1992 19:21:22 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc3.ins.cwru.edu

baldwin@csservera.scs.usna.navy.mil (J.D. Baldwin) writes:

>1.  Though there are numerous examples of successful hierarchies outside
>    the normal USENET "umbrella," such hierarchies should not be created
>    for light and transient reasons.  I wouldn't call the court.* idea
>    light *or* transient, but I think we should consider very carefully
>    whether such a need could be served as well or better within the
>    scope of the current system.  This is the basis for the remaining
>    Clarifications.

I think your own "international" argument (see below) goes against puting
it in "the current system".  The current "big seven" are distributed
internationally.  Thus adding the courts groups to misc.legal or alt.whatever
would FORCE it to be distributed internationally by default.  Creating a
new hierarchy will not automatically distribute the groups to everyone
on the net.  Only those sites that want to carry them will receive them.

>2.  Clearly, this hierarchy will be dominated by US courts.  A number of
>    international readers (including me, if you count the US as "inter-
>    national") have pointed this out.  Should this not be under a us.*
>    or usa.* hierarchy?  I have heard that there is such a thing, but

I see no reason to place arbitrary distribution limits on the hierarchy.
If it turns out that only people in the U.S. want to see these groups
then it will only be distributed within the U.S.  But we should not
start off saying that it will only ever be distributed in the U.S.

>3.  Taken all together, if this idea becomes a success and all federal
>    jurisdictions and most state jurisdictions propagate judicial opinions
>    via this proposed channel, the bandwidth will be quite high.  Maybe
>    not binaries/pictures in magnitude, but high.  More importantly:
>    the ratio of bandwidth to usefulness will be extremely high.  Very,

I think that the usefullness to bandwitdh ratio for the courts hierarchy
will be as high if not higher than any of the other hierarchies.  What
percentage of the comp.* groups do you find useful?  How about alt.*?

>4.  Interesting that my original post said, essentially, "What's the
>    rush?" yet no one has responded to that central point.  The person

I believe I did but I shall reiterate.  UUNET is dropping the service
and I would like to get this going before they do so there is not an
interruption of service.  Note that not everyone has FTP access.  In
fact, most of the people that we get mail from have no network connection
at all.  So setting up regional FTP servers will not serve these people.
-- 
Edward M. Rynes  <rynes@INS.CWRU.Edu>              "Even in my drunken stupor
Information Network Services                I've got to admire your ingenuity
Case Western Reserve University               And I nod my head, oh so wisely
Cleveland, OH  44106-7072                      to the rhythm of your cruelty"
Newsgroups: news.groups