My take is that there are several groups of users. Probably most comon in
North america is the user who has a cable/or Dial-up ISP, that has provided
a version of a "all-in-one" web tool like IE or netscape. Those users have
both news and web access.
Newer users may only receive web access, because it is easier to provide
than a full ISP service. Many folks who actually have news access may not
be aware that it is there, and has to be configured to be used.
Folks working from their office may only have web access. Here at work, I
can look at web sites but have no news access, and heve to send e-mail
through a program that is not intergrated with the web browser.
In other parts of the world, Especialy in areas where local phone service
is charged by the minute, folks may be more likely to use a dial-up to
download mail, (and posibly news) and then work off-line. Web surfing in
those areas is technicaly available, but is out of reach.
Even others (like Chris) may be still using UUCP or equivelent to get mail
and news, and so don't have any direct web access at all. This can be the
case for many users in the third world as well, where the lack of
telecomunications infrastucture makes it impractical to provide TCP/IP
conectivity.
Some sites get news by a Satelite feed, and send news by long distance
phone to another site once a day.
The point is that to cover all users, web will not do. - even though web is
probably the prefered method for many of the possible readers in North
America.
An ideal system for distributing information should allow the same basic
information to be viewed by web, mail, and (perhaps) usenet, to cover as
many users as posible all around the world. Further there should be simple
and clear mechanisims to allow/disallow mirroring to take place both to
distribute the load, and further to allow the creation of local
respositories in places like remote universities that can not have 24 hour
net connectivity.
Charles MacDonald - Information Management
<My own Opinion unless otherwise credited>
-------------
Original Text
From: "Chris Lewis" <clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca>, on 99/03/23 09:00 PM:
To: INET["FAQ-Maintainers" <faq-maintainers@lists.consensus.com>]
On Mar 23, 13:20, Mike Hamilton wrote:
} Actually, I think that Thamer was saying that everyone who has newsgroup
} access will also have web access. Which is a very reasonable assumption.
Nope. I don't have web access, even though I've been posting FAQs longer
than almost any of you ;-)
-- Chris Lewis, CyberSheriff (CBC says I am, so it must be true!) It's not just anyone who has a Starship cruiser class named after them! For more information on spam, see http://spam.abuse.net/spam Fight spam, support Rep. Chris Smith's TCPA extension: http://www.cauce.org
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