From: duane@thismoment.Corp.Sun.COM (Duane Day)
Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead
Subject: Re: OAKLAND TAPE TREES
Date: 17 Dec 1992 20:53:05 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: thismoment.corp.sun.com

In article <1gqgmfINN1cc@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> eds@po.CWRU.Edu (Ethan D. Siegel) writes:
>Hi!

Hi, Ethan!

>Well, I took Steve (The Other One) up on his offer for the
>12-11 tree, and I know that people took him up for the other 
>shows.  I plan on running the tree the week after New Years, so
>that everyone will have net access and also be without the 
>holiday interruptions.  

I'm sure everyone without tapes of this show will thank you for your
efforts.

>I'm thinking
>of trying the tree alternative that was suggested a couple of 
>days ago, that the first ten people who email me after the signup
>is posted who also promise to make up to 10 copies get sent copies
>of the show, and then they each make copies for up to 10 people
>who contact them.  This could work out, and I think it's worth a
>try.  Let me know your thoughts.

This idea sounds good on the face of it, but I recommend against
using it, for three reasons:

(1)  What if 7 or 8 of those first 10 people have nothing but cheapo
     boom boxes to use to copy tapes?  Part of what a tree admin
     does on a normal tree is try to sort things out so that the top 
     level branches have decent equipment.  If you just set up the
     top level as the first 10 people who offer to copy, you stand
     a very good chance that a large percentage of the people on the
     tree will get tapes they won't find at all listenable.

(2)  What do you do with the 111th name?  You've sent 10 people
     10 names apiece for a total of 110, and the requests are still
     coming.  (This might not be the case with 12/11 but I imagine
     it will with 12/12 and 12/13.)  Do you start sending more names
     to the original 10, and leave it to them to find one of their
     leaves to make copies?  This just passing a lot of the effort 
     of running a tree down one layer, to people who are already
     doing quite a lot of work for the tree, since...

(3)  10 copies (20 tapes) is a pretty large number.  It will result in 
     a flatter tree which is admirable - less generations, etc.  But it 
     will also encourage high-speed dubbing (which results in inferior
     tapes) and will discourage many people with high-quality tape
     copying equipment from participating.  Remember, if you're a
     collector of live Dead tapes and you've got a halfway decent
     tape copying setup, you probably have a lot of backed up requests
     to make copies for friends at any given point in time.  Adding
     20 more tapes to the queue in one fell swoop can be a bit daunting. 

>[...] please email me if you've got any
>thoughts on the alternative tree.  

It's probably better to have the discussion over the pros and cons of 
the proposed tape tree system on the net rather than as a series of
email conversations between pairs of individuals.

Setting up a full-blown net tree can be moderately time-consuming,
but it's also a gratifying task and a chance to pay back the nethead
community for good karma and good tapes received from other heads in
the past.  (I'm speaking from personal experience here.)  It feels
good to have done your best at structuring one of these things well, 
since so many people stand to get better tapes as a result.

My opinion, based on experience as a participant in various trees
over the years, is that the proposed plan might result in some
people receiving tapes quicker, but that it is likely to also
result in many people receiving tapes of lower quality than they
might receive if the tree were set up in the traditional way.

cheers,
Duane

Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead