[gopher] (no subject)

[Cameron Kaiser]

> Why does it matter to you how gopher content is served up?   Given the
> content you host, most http->gopher gateways would be sufficiently
> awkward to use that users "in the know" will just reach for their
> favorite gopher client.
> 
> I'm sure people are drawn to gopher for differnet reasons.  For me,
> it's the simplicity of the protocol, and a bit of nostalgia to boot.
> But to try and compartmentalize gopher access by putting your nose up
> and saying access to your site via an http proxy is just not
> acceptable strikes me as rather elitist.

For me, I don't care if people access the site through a proxy or not. My
objection is mindless web robot traffic, because through a proxy it's
impossible to block even if you want to -- all you see is the proxy. You'll
note that the Floodgap proxy is <meta>'ed off and I keep a blocklist of
naughty crawlers.

For the record, Brian, your proxy is seen not infrequently at Floodgap but
the traffic it sends by and large appears to be organic in origin. I don't
object to that in the slightest. The site who shall not be named, however,
is about 70% automatic traffic.

I know others feel this way; I've had some people take their sites off and
when I asked them privately, they said they didn't like "sites snooping
around." So there is an effect on the ecosystem, even if a fringe one.

I like hosting files particularly on Gopher not just because of the hierarchy
but because most bots don't go there and most script kiddies don't even know
what Gopher is. It makes hosting big files much lower impact on my network.

-- 
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  Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser at floodgap.com
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