peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (06/29/88)
The messages posted by the comp.sources.amiga moderators indicate that we didn't make our points as clear as we thought we had in our announcement of the creation of alt.sources.amiga. Consequently, I'd like to clear up a few things. First, let me introduce Karl Lehenbauer. He's posted a few messages and programs now and then :->. Say hi, Karl. "Hi" ...and I'm Peter da Silva. I think most of you have "met" me before. OK. First of all, we are not trying to replace comp.sources.amiga. We're not trying to denigrate the efforts of the comp.sources/binaries.amiga moderators. We created alt.sources.amiga because we believe that it will be a useful new resource to Amiga programmers on the net. We do understand that the majority of the Amiga users on the net are not programmers, and we have no complaints with the decision of the current moderators to continue maintaining the group in the current manner. Developers, however, have other needs. They are our intended "market." We aren't competition with comp.sources.amiga... we're a complementary service. Think of us as "comp.sources.amiga.tech". The people who would otherwise be posting short (and not-so-short) programs to comp.SYS.amiga can now send them to us instead. The people upset about how long it takes them to get the latest whizzbang program that someone announced on comp.sys.amiga can look here. And the people content to wait for the binaries don't even have to be aware we exist. Rather than increasing the waste of net bandwidth, this should decrease it, by moving techie sources into a more appropriate forum. If the comp.*.amiga moderators follow through with their threat and refuse to accept anything posted to alt.sources.amiga for inclusion in comp.sources.amiga, well, that will certainly hurt the chances of alt.sources.amiga's succeeding as an alternate source for code. We are not so narrow-minded as to claim that this is their primary aim. We suspect they're upset at what they believe is a personal attack. It's not. We've considered this move and rejected it several times in the past months. We felt there was a need for a firmer editorial policy in these groups. We've decided that we were wrong... that the current policy does better fit most readers of the Amiga groups. Rather than being an attack, this should be seen as an affirmation of their efforts. -- -- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today?) da Silva. -- U Mail to ...!uunet!sugar!peter, flames to /dev/null. -- "A foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds".
ain@s.cc.purdue.edu (Patrick White) (07/05/88)
[sorry all.. Peter insists that this be done in public view by being much more reasonable in mail, but still attacking us in public. I've tried to keep this in mail, but I finally got fed up with getting one attitude in mail, and then seeing a completely different one on the net] In article <2220@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >OK. First of all, we are not trying to replace comp.sources.amiga. We're > >We aren't competition with comp.sources.amiga... we're a complementary >service. Think of us as "comp.sources.amiga.tech". > >Rather than increasing the waste of net bandwidth, this should decrease >it, by moving techie sources into a more appropriate forum. > >If the comp.*.amiga moderators follow through with their threat and refuse >to accept anything posted to alt.sources.amiga for inclusion in >comp.sources.amiga, well, that will certainly hurt the chances of >alt.sources.amiga's succeeding as an alternate source for code. Quite to the contrary Peter.. by not duplicating postings, we break even on net bandwidth (posting things twice would be an *increase* in bandwidth), and we prevent any temptation from using alt.sources as a parallel to comp.sources.amiga -- this way, the two groups will be different and will thus be able to serve different groups. >We are not so narrow-minded as to claim that this is their primary aim. We >suspect they're upset at what they believe is a personal attack. Of course we are upset -- it does seem like a personal attack.. however, our primary aim is *not* to kill the group, but rather to prevent it from becoming a parallel group (you do say you want it to be different.. we are trying to help in the only way we have available). From the dual nature of your posting, it seems you are not too sure what you want your group to become -- you say you don't want it to be like comp.sources.. but when we try to oblige and try to prevent it from becoming so, you get upset because it *can't* be like comp.sources. If you think we are trying to tromp on you Peter (we really are not), make us eat our words by making your group succeed. Complaining on the net is only going to get a lot of people pissed at all of us and make this group look bad! > Rather than being an attack, this should be seen as an affirmation of >their efforts. Personally speaking (ie. not for Rob or Brent), I don't see the alt.sources group as an attack -- rather I see your presentation of it as one. I feel you may be right about the group being necessary -- and if so, it may succeed (depends on you Peter). However, I *am* opposed to a parallel group forming as I don't really see the need for it (except to get sources out faster.. but in the long run, having one group or two dosen't really make a bit of difference).. however, I do see a *possible* need for a group that provides an entirely different service. My suggestion Peter, is that you archive alt.sources at sugar, and make it into this developer's group you talk about. Let the people send you code fragments and individual functions (things *we* can't allow because we don't have time to write programs to test that kind of stuff). If your group proves to be valuable and has useful stuff, I'll be one of the people supporting you.. but *only* if it provides something useful. -- Pat White (co-moderator comp.sources/binaries.amiga) ARPA/UUCP: j.cc.purdue.edu!ain BITNET: PATWHITE@PURCCVM PHONE: (317) 743-8421 U.S. Mail: 320 Brown St. apt. 406, West Lafayette, IN 47906 [How do you get to heaven? Go to Pluto and hang a left.]