dww@stl.UUCP (David Wright) (07/03/85)
I am re-posting this because it didn't seem to get out the first time. If it did, and you've seen it before, "Sorry". In-Reply-To: <272@dcl-cs.UUCP> I still think there should be a new group for Distributed Operating Systems discussions, tho' net.research would be better than nowhere (or than mailing lists). Why is everyone so concerned about new groups? They aren't a limited resource are they (OK group namespace is finite, but BIG finite!). More groups don't mean more file space (except the odd extra directory file) and they do allow us to get much more specific info instead of plowing through lots of irrelevancy to find the useful bits. Personally I would much rather have a lot of fairly specific groups - many of which I would no doubt unsubscribe to - than the present situation where some of the more popular groups are so full of several arguments and issues at once that even with 'Kill' files it takes ages to find that odd bit of gold that makes it worth sifting all that ore. Perhaps we should have a "temporary" group system - a "temporary" group would be created more readily than a permanent one (which it seems can only be created by 6 months of net discussion or the ignorant action of a luckless new Mail/News sys manager :-)) and would automatically be deleted when there had no postings to it for (say) a month, UNLESS in the meantime it had been decided (by a net vote?) to make it permanent. I don't think this would require a massive alteration to all the net's software, as it could be organised manually by the few people who (it seems) do most of the work at present (if they are willing?). (I'm just a user, I don't maintain News - maybe there's some hidden limit to the number of groups in all that code?? :-))