mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (10/21/83)
It's generally felt that the current postnews command presents a very bad user interface. In particular, the distribution prompt offers whatever you typed for "newsgroups" as a default distribution, e.g. Subject: an important question Newsgroups (general): net.general,net.wanted Distribution (net.general,net.wanted): Since distribution is supposed to be something like "net" (go to the whole net), "nj" (only go to New Jersey), "btl" (stay within Bell Labs), or just hitting return (go by the newsgroups), this is confusing. I'm looking at the possibility of a new user interface which presents a prompt like this: Distribution (world, na, usa, nj, att, btl, ho, local, ?): where typing "?" would print something like this: How widely should your message be distributed? Choose one of: world: every place on Usenet in the whole world (same as "net") na: everywhere in North America usa: everywhere in the United States nj: everywhere in New Jersey att: everywhere inside AT&T btl: everywhere inside Bell Labs ho: within the Holmdel building local: just on this machine It has been suggested that there are too many choices here. (Obviously the list of choices will vary depending on where the sender is located.) One person has suggested that the list should be 7 or fewer choices, since more than 7 choices confuses people. He suggests that "usa" and "na" should not be on the list at all. Also, comments on the "world" vs "net" choice above would be appreciated, given that internally it needs to be "net" for upward compatibility, but the user interface could hide that. This group is presumably well informed on such issues. What do you think?
mel@houxm.UUCP (10/22/83)
I think the whole idea of "Distribution" doesn't make sense. It is in conflict with the "Newsgroup", which has a very easy to grasp distribution function. Nothing you can program into the computer will remove this fundamental confusion of the human users. What problem is the "Distribution" field a solution for? Mel Haas , houxm!mel
mark@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/23/83)
More than 7 choices does NOT confuse people, and this is a good
example if when it does not. The choice of how to distribute
the news is hierarchical, not a random selection of items.
This ordering means that one can actually scan it from top
to bottom and pick the first one that seems right. Thus
the short-term memory usage is only one item, not hitting
the 5 plus-or-minus 2 limit at all.
However, among choices like "all at&t" and "all north america"
there is not a clear hierarchical relationship. So the number
of these choices should be less than or equal to 7.
(By the way, supposedly 7 plusorminus 2 was a mistake and 7 is an
upper limit, so the proper chunking figure is 5 plusorminus 2.
This appeared in print somewhere (the 5--of course I have the 7
reference) but I cannot find where. Can anyone help?
--
spoken: mark weiser
UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!mark
CSNet: mark@umcp-cs
ARPA: mark.umcp-cs@CSNet-Relaydave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (10/23/83)
Distribution is indeed important, Mel (houxm!mel). Suppose
I want to announce something of interest to all rogue players
on my machine? There's obviously no need for a local "games.rogue"
newsgroup, and I don't want to annoy the other users by posting
to "general". So, I use net.games.rogue with distribution "local".
(This is a real example, by the way.)
Or suppose I want to inform everyone in Toronto who might be
interested that Monty Python is on Channel 17 every week.
Again, tor.general would reach people who aren't interested in
TV. So I use net.tv with distribution "tor". And so on.
In a few cases - "general", "wanted", and so on, there are already
newsgroups set up within the sub-area. I see stuff posted to
"net.wanted,bell.wanted,btl.wanted,nj.wanted"
all the time, which seems to me to be totally unnecessary. Generally
these articles are ones which should have stayed in NJ in the first
place. With a properly designed "Distribution" prompt, these regional
groups shouldn't even be necessary. Just post to net.wanted with Distribution
"nj". Perhaps some newsgroups such as net.wanted should interpret a null
reply to the Distribution prompt as being much more local than the whole
net, and tell the user so.
Dave Sherman
Toronto
--
{cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!lsuc!daveekb@machaids.UUCP (Eric Bustad) (10/24/83)
I'm replying to Mel Haas' reply: the original never made it this far. I thought that the purpose of the "Distribution" field was quite clear. It is to allow one to post an article to a net-wide newsgroup while restricting it to the local area. There would not usually be enough need to justify creating a local newsgroup. For example, I might want to post an article to net.sf-lovers to announce that WBGO (88.3FM) is going to rebroadcast "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy". This is a one-shot announcement of local interest only and I would get fried if I let it be sent all over the country. So I set the distribution to "nj,ny". I think the whole idea of "Distribution" makes a lot of sense. It isn't as robust as the use of "Newsgroup", since there are still systems which don't recognize it, but it makes sense to me to separate the specification of interest area from that of distribution. -- = Eric Bustad (BTL-HO) ihnp4!machaids!ekb
thomas@utah-gr.UUCP (Spencer W. Thomas) (10/24/83)
To answer houxm!mel's question "what problem is the distribution field supposed to be a solution for?", it is to avoid house for sale ads (in NJ, for example) posted to net.wanted showing up here in Utah! =Spencer
mel@houxm.UUCP (10/24/83)
We have nj.wanted for New Jersey house wanted ads.
idallen@watmath.UUCP (10/24/83)
I don't mind the "menu" style prompt for Distribution in POSTNEWS, but
surely it should only list the regions of local interest. "btl, ho,
att, nj" are pointless here in Canada. Keep this in mind when you program it.
--
-IAN! (Ian! D. Allen) University of Waterlootim@minn-ua.UUCP (10/25/83)
especially when you have people who want to sell thier car and such. I'm not going to buy a car from someone in CA and when I talk about a new tv show that has just come out on a local station, it doesn't make sense for the whole net to know about it. The only people that it applies to are the people in MN and WI. I like the idea to have a list of things to choose from. I personally would have a smaller number of choices shown at first. I would put more under the question mark option. stolaf!umn-cs!minn-ua!tim
chris@umcp-cs.UUCP (10/25/83)
In fact, we should get rid of the area classification in front of
all the newsgroup names ("net.books", "um.general" would become
"books" and "general") and use the distribution field for that.
Then there should probably be a set of newsgroups which are considered
"local unless otherwise specified." This should make the distribution
field more understandable (people wouldn't have to ask "Why is
there a distribution field? We have a net.general and a um.general
for that.").
In other words, "Newsgroup" would be equivalent to "major topic",
"Subject" to "minor topic", and "Distribution" to "where it goes".
--
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci
UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!chris
CSNet: chris@umcp-cs ARPA: chris.umcp-cs@CSNet-Relaymmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (10/25/83)
Mark Weiser's comment about 7 +- 2 being wrong is correct, but his correction is wrong. There is no real upper limit; it depends on the circumstances (other cognitive load) and on the material being remembered. A series of studies at this laboratory (J. Mackworth and co-workers in the 1960's) showed limits of between 2 and 14 for the same short-term memory task using different materials and loads. The magic number 7 +- 2 should have been revised long ago to say 8 +- 6. Martin Taylor
trb@masscomp.UUCP (Andy Tannenbaum) (10/26/83)
Mark Horton (and others after him) have been discussing the cognitive
engineering effects of having [567]+-2 options on the postnews
Distribution: field menu. I don't believe that the rules of short
term memory chunking (?) should apply to this question.
The problem at hand is to choose a geographic region, or perhaps some
other region. Let's say you had to choose a destination from a menu
list of counties or states or Bell Labs locations. I could see having
a preliminary menu {county, state, BTL loc} which then dispatched you
to the submenu. I can't see displaying only the [567]+-2 closest or
most populated states. Similarly, Mark Horton suggested trimming a
potentially useful set of options to accommodate cognitive theory.
You coggers out there are stretching your theories a bit too thinly for
my tastes. It's this kind of problem that creates the rift between
psychologists and people trying to get things done in the real world.
As long as I'm in town, I might as well mention that I agree that the
netnews group names should be separated into distribution and
category, so that my global flames would be posted to group: flame,
distribution: net (or world or whatever).
Andy Tannenbaum Masscomp Inc Littleton MA (617) 486-9581mjl@ritcv.UUCP (Mike Lutz) (10/26/83)
In general, I agree that the newsgroup should indicate a class of information
(general, wanted, unix-wizards, etc.) and that the distribution should be used
to decide how far an item goes. There are problems with this, however, due to
the topology of USENET.
For instance, it would be nice to have an 'ny' distribution for New York State
(we currently have 'wny' for Western New York). The problem is that our main
news feed into the region is 'seismo', and I doubt they are at all interested
in what happens in New York. On the other hand, they are essentially the only
route we currently have to the net-at-large. Things only get worse when I
want to post something to another area like Florida (maybe I want to buy a
condo in Miami). Right now I have to distribute to the smallest "super-area"
which includes both my region and the region of interest. Almost invariably
this is net.
Perhaps cog-eng is not the appropriate place to bring up such concerns. On
the other hand, it does demonstrate that even the best interface package often
has to deal with limitations beyond its control.
Mike Lutz
{allegra,seismo}!rochester!ritcv!mjldave@rocksvax.UUCP (10/28/83)
So that's what "distribution" stands for!!! All this time I thought
it was a duplicate/acknowledgment for (group). Sounds to me that that
interface certainly needs cleaning up.
--
Dave
Arpa: Sewhuk.HENR@PARC-MAXC.ARPA
uucp: {allegra, rochester, amd70, sunybcs}!rocksvax!dave