rafael@proxftl.UUCP (Rafael Mayer) (06/20/88)
In article <50@uisc1.UUCP>, root@uisc1.UUCP (Super user) writes: > I would like to air one gripe that has been steadily building as I have > been reading various posts on the question/advice oriented newsgroups. > > The trend is to ask a question, and then to finish it by saying "Please > reply to E-mail/private mail as I am too busy to keep up with this > conference/newsgroup." > What's the result? Well, the result is a newsgroup in which you have lots > and lots of questions, and no answers. The result is also that people > stop reading the newsgroup, as nobody is really terribly interested in > the questions. It's the answers and the advice people are reading it for. > > Comments and Feedback encouraged, publicly to this newsgroup. Actually there is a good reason for this. Person X posts a question on newsgroup Y and 30 people know the answer. If they all posted the answers to the net then we would get high volume and redundancy in newsgroup Y. I agree that questions without answers are annoying, the alternative practice I have seen takes care of this problem. If you post a question to the net add the following: Respond by E-mail, and I will summarize to the net. This way, we avoid seeing repeat postings of the same answer, and if there is more than one solution, they are all neatly summarized in a single article. It works. +-----------------------------------------------------+--------------------+ | Rafael Mayer | This space | | UUCP: {ihnp4!codas,allegra}!novavax!proxftl!rafael | for rent. | |_____________________________________________________|____________________| | Smooth ice | Friedrich | | Is paradise | Wilhelm | | For those who dance with expertise. | Nietzsche | +------------------------------------------------------------+-------------+
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu (06/22/88)
What makes you certain that it works? How do you know that the summary,
if it ever appears (remember that the person posting the request says
that he doesn't keep up with the notefile/newsgroup), is an accurate
representation of the responses received? Traffic isn't that slow
over most of the network, and I doubt that everybody will respond to
a question at the same time, before any similar answers appear on
their own machine.
Mike Berger
Department of Statistics
Science, Technology, and Society
University of Illinois
berger@clio.las.uiuc.edu
{ihnp4 | convex | pur-ee}!uiucuxc!clio!berger