page%swap@Sun.COM (Bob Page) (12/02/89)
As of Jan 1, I'm going to stop moderating the Amiga sources and binaries groups. It's not that I don't like doing it, it's that I don't have the time to devote to the task to get it done as well as I'd like. It doesn't make me happy to be sitting on all these great sources and binaries, when the rest of the world should have them. So, I'd like to turn the task over to somebody else. I don't want to pick the new moderator, so please don't send your suggestions and nominations to me. Most of us are adults and I'm sure we can reach a consensus as quickly as possible. If everyone feels this should be conducted via email, somebody can act as coordinator. If/When a new moderator is chosen, I'll happily supply the tools I use and impart some of the philosphy I used. If no moderator is chosen, I'll ask the Powers That Be to declare the group unmoderated. Of course I will continue to accept and post sources and binaries until Jan 1. ..bob
charles@hpcvca.CV.HP.COM (Charles Brown) (12/04/89)
> As of Jan 1, I'm going to stop moderating the Amiga sources and > binaries groups. It's not that I don't like doing it, it's that I > don't have the time to devote to the task to get it done as well as > I'd like. > page%swap@Sun.COM (Bob Page) Bob Thank you for the great service you have provided to the Amiga community. We are all indebted to you. -- Charles Brown charles@cv.hp.com or charles%hpcvca@hplabs.hp.com or hplabs!hpcvca!charles or "Hey you!"
page@swap.Sun.COM (Bob Page) (12/06/89)
This posting is rather long, but I hope there's a lot of signal. A number of folks have sent me mail expressing their interest, and asking what it takes to be moderator. First, interest should be expressed to the net; I don't think I should be picking the new moderator, I think the readers of comp.sys.amiga shoud decide. If the readers of c.s.a want me to decide, we can probably have the whole matter taken care of in a few days, as I've already gotten some very good people (in my opinion) asking to moderate. Second, here's some answers to questions. > How do you get stuff? People email it to me. Sometimes they post it to the binaries or sources group like a regular posting. In that case, some software on their system knows it's a moderated group, and emails the article to some site that knows who the moderator is. That site emails the article to me. So either way, it ends up in my mailbox. Since I also have Internet access, some folks send me mail with a pointer to the code, and I FTP from their machine. This is not common, however. At ULowell, I had a directory where people could FTP files to me for posting, but Sun doesn't allow anonymous FTP, so I don't do that here. > Do you test the postings? Usually not. Mostly because I don't have the time. > How much volume? It comes and goes. Figure on the average, about 200KB a week. However, the more often I post, the more people are encouraged (or reminded maybe) to send me stuff, so when I'm posting, I'm usually getting a lot of submissions. If I don't post anything for a few weeks (a practice I do not recommend, by the way), things come in slowly. Since I don't post a lot, I'd say 200KB/week. If you post stuff as it comes in, it might be as high as 500KB/week. > How much time does it take to do the job justice? I'd figure on 10 minutes per individual posting you end up sending. For multi-part postings, maybe 5 minutes per, so a 6-part posting to the binaries groups takes maybe half an hour to prepare and post. I do everything on my UNIX machine so I can get it done faster (sometimes the Amiga is faster but there's upload/download time involved too). If I tested the code, it would naturally take a lot longer. Some take a LOT of time, some take almost no time. I can count on submissions from Matt Dillon to take a while, as the binaries and sources need to be parsed out of his tree into different areas, docs and config files need to be indentified and duplicated, and sometimes binary-only run-time code needs to be uuencoded for the sources group, otherwise the source code isn't complete, and I'll get flamed. On the other hand, I know anything from Kim DeVaughn can go out very quickly, since he sends me things in split, uuencode zoo files, usually separated into sources and binaries. You can cut down on the amount of time you spend fiddling with code by requiring rigidly formatted submissions, but I suggest against it. I accept things in just about any format - compressed tar files, split uuencoded lharc files, etc. You name it, people will send it. I figure that way is best, because if people have to conform to rigid posting rules, they won't submit. I can easily see Matt, for example, saying 'take it or leave it, I'm too busy to format it for you' .. and I wouldn't blame him for it. > How much disk space do you have to devote to the job? Once the posting comes in, it goes into a holding area until I can get to it. When I go to post it, I copy it from the holding area into the posting work area, and also to a 'saved' area, just in case I get reports of problems later on. I nominally save the 'saved' stuff (the original postings as they come into me) for about a month. Once the posting is reformatted to "Usenet-standard" and goes out to the world, I put the files in an archive. I was fortunate that while I was at ULowell I ran the machines, so I could devote as much disk space to the archive as I wanted. At Sun, Raz was kind enough to give up 70MB of his workstation's disk for the kilowatt archive, so I could keep stuff there. While you don't HAVE to have an archive, there are two reasons why you should. The first is that when you post something, you give it an archive name, for all those sites around the world (and there are quite a few of them!) that automatically archive the sources. If you don't have an archive yourself, you'll save disk space, but you won't know what names you've already used, so you might give something the same name you've already used, which is going to mess up the archive, if not the archivers. The second reason is that folks will often ask you to send them posting foo.uu4 or something, which you posted a month ago, or yesterday, but for some reason never made it to their site. [This manual intervention stuff goes with the territory, I'm afraid. At Sun Raz set up en email archive server so I could direct folks to use that rather then spend my time sending people stuff from the archive] The archive is currently about 40M-50MB. An exact figure is hard to give since kilowatt's archive is in a sad state. Raz has since moved, so he's not on kilowatt any more. My (and now Raz's) network connection to it hasn't been good enough lately to get things as good as they should be. Hopefully soon I can put everything on tape and send it off to those folks who want it. Technically, you can get by without having to use up much disk space. The method I took probably maximized the amount of disk space needed. Over time, however, I'm glad I used the approach I did. > Do I have to post from a UNIX system? No. You do need the posting tools, however. The most rudimentary are the preparation tools, like zoo, uuencode, shar and split. I have some special tools to look for viruses in binaries, binaries in source postings, etc, but there's just stock C that you can port anywhere. There is one tool, the actual posting program, that does a lot of things on your behalf, like increment the issue number, keep a log of postings, make sure you get the headers right, etc. It was originally written for UNIX by Rich Salz, moderator of comp.sources.unix. I've modified it a great deal, and it still runs only under UNIX, but I've used it on a VAX, sun3 and sun4 without any problems. Once you see what it does, you might be able to port it to your machine, or convert it to AREXX scripts, or whatever. The one tool I don't have but should is something that looks for copyright notices and shows them to me. At the moment I have to do it myself. You'd be suprised at the number of people who put copyright notices in their code and docs and never permit redistribution. A quick note to them usually clears things up. > How much do you reject? I accept almost everything except for: 1. Demos of commercial software 2. Products of software, like animations, sound files, pictures. Once in a while I make an exception for stuff that's bundled with something else; e.g. a sound file with 'muncho'. I also temporarily reject Copyrighted material with no redistribution statement, and stuff I can't unpack (people invent the weirdest ways to send stuff. If comp.binaries.amiga was unmoderated, there would be more people wailing about how they need some unarchiver than people posting code). Usually a note to the submitter about the problem will clear things up. I don't like posting shareware either, but I post it. > How do you decide what gets posted when? Usually First in, first out. Once in a while I give priority to some code that's relevent to a hot topic in one of the discussion groups. However, I don't do that any more because I haven't had time to read Usenet since July. > Bitnet OK? Or is it pretty much a internet/usenet specific function??? It's pretty much a USENET (not even internet) specific function, only because USENET was never designed to ship large programs around. I think the moderator needs to continually keep that in mind, else we'd start seeing 400K postings, which would never work in the Usenet world. [We're talking least common denominator here, unfortunately]. BITNET has the distinctly bad reputation for 80-character records, and munging the ASCII character set. It's doable from anywhere, but I think a Usenet site would be best. > Will I be famous? Yup. Not as famous as Fred Fish, though. :-) ..bob
michael@fts1.UUCP (Michael Richardson) (12/12/89)
In article <128801@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> page@Eng.sun.com (Bob Page) writes: >This posting is rather long, but I hope there's a lot of signal. > >A number of folks have sent me mail expressing their interest, and >asking what it takes to be moderator. First, interest should be >expressed to the net; I don't think I should be picking the new >moderator, I think the readers of comp.sys.amiga shoud decide. If the Yes, please post to the net! It wasn't until my roomate told me of your decision that I knew of it. I stopped reading comp.sys.amiga because of the volume. (I'm in favour of lots of smaller newsgroups, or at least --- a big kill file) I have resubscribed to comp.sys.amiga with a kill file to mark anything with `moderator' as the subject as unread. I wish I had the time --- I can probably find the disk space. -- :!mcr!: Michael C. Richardson HOME: mcr@julie.UUCP SCHOOL: mcr@doe.carleton.ca WORK: michael@fts1.UUCP I never liked staying in one place too long, but this is getting silly...
tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) (12/12/89)
As you know, Bob Page is going to stop moderating the Amiga sources and binaries groups at the end of the year. He has asked that a potential new moderator come forward, and that we discuss/decide upon a new moderator ourselves in comp.sys.amiga. I would like to offer my services as moderator of comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga. I believe that I have the time and resources to devote to these newsgroups to ensure reasonable turnaround. Many of you already know me as the maintainer of the Xanth Archives, a long time archive site of Amiga software. My contact site of xanth.cs.odu.edu is easily reachable on the IP Internet and via UUCP (being registered in HOSTS.TXT, the DNS, and the UUCP Mapping Project). If I were to be moderator, I would perform much as Bob has (no testing, repackage everything into consistent uuencoded split zoo files, etc.) I would probably choose a different naming scheme (something more similar to comp.sources.unix, where multi-part postings appear in the archives as Part01.Z, etc), although I could be convinced to do otherwise. Bob has served as a great moderator, and I'm sorry to see him go. He asked that the discussion of this issue be in comp.sys.amiga, so let's get to it... Comments? ...tad
bryan@cs.utexas.edu (Bryan Bayerdorffer @ Wit's End) (12/13/89)
In article <TADGUY.89Dec11223718@diatomite.cs.odu.edu> tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) writes:
=-
=-I would like to offer my services as moderator of comp.sources.amiga
=-and comp.binaries.amiga. I believe that I have the time and resources
=-to devote to these newsgroups to ensure reasonable turnaround. Many
=-of you already know me as the maintainer of the Xanth Archives
Tad's been coing an excellent job with the archives, and in my opinion
it's a big advantage to have the moderator also be the maintainer of the
archive at a well-connected internet site. Unless someone's got a radically
better suggestion, he's got my vote.
I propose the following: Allow one week for anyone who thinks they can do a
better job as moderator to volunteer. If one or more such persons come
forward, someone can collect the votes of comp.sys.amiga* readers. If not, Tad
is it. We don't want to drag this out forever.
I'd volunteer to collect votes, but I'm going to be away for three
weeks shortly.nraoaoc@nmtsun.nmt.edu (NRAO Array Operations Center) (12/13/89)
In article <TADGUY.89Dec11223718@diatomite.cs.odu.edu> tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) writes: >As you know, Bob Page is going to stop moderating the Amiga sources >a new moderator ourselves in comp.sys.amiga.... > >I would like to offer my services as moderator of comp.sources.amiga >... >Comments? > Tad I think it is great that Tad is willing to take this job on. As a frequent user of the xanth archive, I can say that we can be sure he will do a good job. We are all indebted to Bob for his contributions to the Amiga community. Pat Palmer
nschultz@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Ned W. Schultz) (12/13/89)
I think that Tad has more than demonstrated his competence via xanth, so he has my vote for the new moderator. Thanks for you willingness to do this, Tad. Ned Schultz nschultz@polyslo.calpoly.edu
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (12/13/89)
Tad is our man. I cast my vote for him. -- Marco -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= [.signature under contruction] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (12/13/89)
Tad's got my vote.
-larry
--
" All I ask of my body is that it carry around my head."
- Thomas Alva Edison -
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
| // Larry Phillips |
| \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips |
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+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+GIAMPAL@AUVM.BITNET (12/13/89)
Tad has my vote for new moderator also, but I just have one question for Tad.
You mentioned that you will be leaving your position at Xanth when you are done
with school. How much longer is that? I'm sure you'll do a good job, but will
it cause any confusion if your address changes? Just wondering.
--dominicfac2@dayton.saic.com (Earle Ake) (12/14/89)
In article <1989Dec13.041211.20315@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>, nschultz@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Ned W. Schultz) writes: > I think that Tad has more than demonstrated his competence via xanth, > so he has my vote for the new moderator. Thanks for you willingness > to do this, Tad. Mine too. Would that also mean that Tad would keep the submissions online there at xanth as well? -- _____________________________________________________________________________ ____ ____ ___ Earle Ake /___ /___/ / / Science Applications International Corporation ____// / / /__ Dayton, Ohio ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Internet: fac2%dayton.saic.com@uunet.uu.net uucp: uunet!dayvb!fac2
aegnor@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (David C. Powell) (12/14/89)
Tad gets my vote also... I can NOT get to Xanth, but after hearing/seeing
all the good things said about him, they MUST be treu... ;-) right Tad?
Besides that, I maintain OUR archives of Amiga stuff here at BSU, and wish
the service of GETTING binaries/sources to remain pretty consistant/constant!
There... my .02 worth...
David C. Powell
M.I.S. Senior
Ball State University
Muncie, Indiana
*-David Powell :ARPA: aegnor@bsu-cs.bsu.edu--------------------------*
| \/ President :UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee}!bsu-cs!aegnor |
| /\etwnk Industries, Ltd. : |
*-"If it doesn't work, we DIDN'T do it!"-----------------------------*kms@uncecs.edu (Ken Steele) (12/14/89)
In article <TADGUY.89Dec11223718@diatomite.cs.odu.edu>, tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) writes: > As you know, Bob Page is going to stop moderating the Amiga sources > and binaries groups at the end of the year. He has asked that a > potential new moderator come forward, and that we discuss/decide upon > a new moderator ourselves in comp.sys.amiga. > > I would like to offer my services as moderator of comp.sources.amiga > and comp.binaries.amiga. I believe that I have the time and resources > to devote to these newsgroups to ensure reasonable turnaround. Many > of you already know me as the maintainer of the Xanth Archives, a long > time archive site of Amiga software. My contact site of > xanth.cs.odu.edu is easily reachable on the IP Internet and via UUCP > (being registered in HOSTS.TXT, the DNS, and the UUCP Mapping Project). > ...tad Tad has volunteered for this position, and he has the background to do an excellent job. It is time that we moved along with picking a new moderator. Other people who are interested in the position should do like Tad. Go ahead and post your offer along with a short description for people who may not be familiar with your history of involvement with comp.{sources | binaries}.amiga. Ken -- Ken Steele Dept. of Psychology kms@ecsvax[.bitnet] Mars Hill College kms@ecsvax.uncecs.edu Mars Hill, NC 28754 {some big name site}!mcnc!ecsvax!kms
monty@sagpd1.UUCP (Monty Saine) (12/15/89)
In article <864.25864509@dayton.saic.com> fac2@dayton.saic.com (Earle Ake) writes: >In article <1989Dec13.041211.20315@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>, nschultz@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (Ned W. Schultz) writes: >> I think that Tad has more than demonstrated his competence via xanth, >Mine too. Would that also mean that Tad would keep the submissions online >there at xanth as well? > Along this same vein, could something like the server we had for a while be set up to allow access to the archives for us people that do not have ftp access? Just a thought, no flames please. Monty Saine
jenglish@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Jim English) (12/15/89)
In article <556@sagpd1.UUCP> monty@sagpd1.UUCP (Monty Saine) writes: > > Along this same vein, could something like the server we had for a while >be set up to allow access to the archives for us people that do not have ftp >access? Just a thought, no flames please. > We do not have the luxury of FTP either. A server would be fantastic! Herbie casts one vote for stuffing!!! -- Jim English MD-IPC | JENGLISH@F74.TYMNET.COM or jenglish@tardis.tymnet.com (214)637-7406 Dallas | UUCP: ...!{ames,pyramid}!oliveb!tymix!tardis!jenglish
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (12/15/89)
In <TADGUY.89Dec15135100@diatomite.cs.odu.edu>, tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) writes: > While I'd like to make them available, I'm concered about the possibility of >someone submitting copyrighted material, which would then be available for ftp. >I think it'd be safer if the unposted submissions were kept away from the ftp >area until they are verified to be distributable. I agree. While I would not expect the moderator to fully test each and every submission, I do feel that submissions should be at least checked for copyright before being made available. There is nothing that will screw things up quite as badly as posting copyright material. -larry -- " All I ask of my body is that it carry around my head." - Thomas Alva Edison - +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca -or- uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 -or- 76703.4322@compuserve.com | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+
tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) (12/16/89)
In article <89347.090815GIAMPAL@AUVM.BITNET> GIAMPAL@AUVM.BITNET writes: > You mentioned that you will be leaving your position at Xanth when > you are done with school. How much longer is that? I'm sure you'll > do a good job, but will it cause any confusion if your address > changes? Just wondering. You weren't supposed to mention that! :-) It's true -- I start a new job January. However, I will continue to have access to xanth (universities are funny that way), and will continue to maintain the archives there until I have a suitable archive site established at my new place of work. The new archive will probably be on my SPARCstation-1 with 660M of local disk space... :-) I don't foresee my job change as affecting my ability to moderate, or to maintain the xanth archives. ...tad
tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) (12/16/89)
In article <864.25864509@dayton.saic.com> fac2@dayton.saic.com (Earle Ake) writes: > Would that also mean that Tad would keep the submissions online > there at xanth as well? Complete archives of comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga (since Bob took over) are already archives on xanth.cs.odu.edu in /usenet/. Postings that haven't yet gone out would be kept on xanth, but I'm undecided whether yet-unposted submissions should be available. While I'd like to make them available, I'm concered about the possibility of someone submitting copyrighted material, which would then be available for ftp. I think it'd be safer if the unposted submissions were kept away from the ftp area until they are verified to be distributable. Comments? ...tad
donw@zehntel.zehntel.com (Don White) (12/16/89)
In article <TADGUY.89Dec11223718@diatomite.cs.odu.edu> tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) writes: >As you know, Bob Page is going to stop moderating the Amiga sources >and binaries groups at the end of the year. He has asked that a >potential new moderator come forward, and that we discuss/decide upon > >I would like to offer my services as moderator of comp.sources.amiga My (often faulty) memory of Bobs request was for feed back. Who chooses the moderator? I sent him mail saying that I felt he was a good person to make the choice. For my two cents worth, Tad sounds like an excellent choice. Don (wish I had the time to do it myself.) White Box 271177 Concord, CA. 94527-1177 zehntel!donw
tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) (12/16/89)
In article <556@sagpd1.UUCP> monty@sagpd1.UUCP (Monty Saine) writes: > Along this same vein, could something like the server we had for a while > be set up to allow access to the archives for us people that do not have ftp > access? Just a thought, no flames please. I intend to have a mail based archive server available, but I can't offer any dates or committments. Just good intentions... I'm an archive-server elitist -- I'm not fully happy with any of the archive servers I've found so far, though they all have some things I like. I want one that encompasses all those good things. I'll probably end up doing it myself (actually, I've already half-written it). When it's available, I'll post an announcement, but don't hold your breath. Sorry... ...tad
magik@sorinc.PacBell.COM (Darrin A. Hyrup) (12/17/89)
In article <886@tardis.Tymnet.COM> jenglish@tardis.Tymnet.COM (Jim English) writes: >In article <556@sagpd1.UUCP> monty@sagpd1.UUCP (Monty Saine) writes: >> Along this same vein, could something like the server we had for a while >>be set up to allow access to the archives for us people that do not have ftp >>access? Just a thought, no flames please. >> >We do not have the luxury of FTP either. A server would be fantastic! >Herbie casts one vote for stuffing!!! I also think it would be a good idea for the new moderator to be able to make the archives available via anonymous UUCP or email server for those who do not have access to the internet/ftp. Btw, I put in my vote for Tad. >Jim English MD-IPC | JENGLISH@F74.TYMNET.COM or jenglish@tardis.tymnet.com -Darrin -- Darrin A. Hyrup // AMIGA Enthusiast rencon!esfenn!dah magik@sorinc.PacBell.COM \X/ & Software Developer pacbell!sorinc!magik ========================================================================== "Speak little and well, if you wish to be considered as possessing merit."
monty@sagpd1.UUCP (Monty Saine) (12/21/89)
> >When it's available, I'll post an announcement, but don't hold your >breath. Sorry... > > ...tad Thank You, we will wait (probably impatiently - but hopefully). Monty Saine
davel@sequent.UUCP (Dave Lennert) (12/28/89)
>> Along this same vein, could something like the server we had for a while >>be set up to allow access to the archives for us people that do not have ftp >>access? > >We do not have the luxury of FTP either. A server would be fantastic! While we're on the subject, I'd like an email server for access to Fred Fish disks. I also lack FTP access and would love to be able to pickup the occasional program that wasn't also posted to usenet. Any possibilities of this? Dave Lennert {uunet,sun,tektronix}!sequent!davel Sequent Computer Systems sequent!davel@uunet.UU.NET 15450 S.W. Koll Parkway Beaverton, OR 97006 (503) 526-4245