werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (06/26/83)
A suggestion to reduce posting of articles to multiple news-groups. ------------------------------------- It is a gesture of consideration, I guess, when someone posts an article to multiple news-groups, because someone else might be interested in it who is not following the principle news-group it is addressing. A problem, however, is that most of the follow-up articles are then also posted every- where and create a flood of artticles, expensive in resources and folks' time and patience. The response that there is an "n"-reply does neither address the resulting problem nor is it considerate of others' needs. The number of messages one filters is large already, without having to cope with duplicates on 3 different news-groups, especially when at low Baud-rate terminals. We could reduce the problem by establishing a new form of etiquette, allowing the postingof an article addressing a "new" topic to several groups, but requiring that the author identify the "major" news-group where all follow-up discussion should take place. Etiquette says, one respects the judgment of the original author and does so. To follow the discussion "passively" one starts reading the news-group in question. A less desirable alternative is the posting of an article in one news-group X only, but posting a "Note" to other news-groups advising that such-and-such topic is bing discussed on group X, thus giving a courteous hint to people who might not follow group X at that time that they might want to do so. Trying to keep up with many news-groups might become a little more enjoyable. A more complicated (but very appealing and attractive solution) would be a different news-system not with news-groups but with keywords identifying the contents of a message, where one would follow certain "keywords", and one could "enable" the display of announcements of follow-up articles. Oh well, caught trying to rock the boat again, I guess ...
jcz@ncsu.UUCP (07/06/83)
References: ut-ngp.374 How hard would it be to show an article only once, regardless of how many newsgroups it was sent to? --jcz