page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (04/02/88)
Last week I posted the voting tally for comp.sys.amiga.tech, which was quite in favor. Since then, TWENTY (20) people changed their votes from YES to NO, and I've gotten 40 NO votes in the past week! Current voting is 161 in favor, 78 NOT in favor. I don't know what brought on all the NO votes all of a sudden, but I suspect it's some kind of consipiracy from the folks in talk.bizzare. The voting is officially going to be over on Monday, April 4, and if I don't get at least 17 more YES votes than NO votes over the weekend, there won't be a comp.sys.amiga.tech. If you want to see a tech group, and haven't voted .. please vote quick! ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. page@swan.ulowell.edu ulowell!page
dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (04/02/88)
I can think of two good reasons why so many people are changing their votes... so far, just about everything on comp.sys.amiga.tech is cross posted from comp.sys.amiga . I think it has already reached the point of no return (due to people blindly doing a reply from rn without editing the newsgroups it goes to). This is *not* what Bryce had in mind when he originally suggested the idea. Secondly, considering the technical nature of the original newsgroup, many people became confused as to where they should post... amiga or amiga.tech, and so posted to both. So while each one of us might be able to break articles up into two catagories in hind site, it turns out not to be so easy in real time. I wind up having to read both groups. I hope you all learned something about the net today.... people are people. In this case, only a very few people recognized the problem, and they were all shot down when they tried to explain it. -Matt
kenchiu@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Kenneth Chiu) (04/02/88)
In article <8804020242.AA24241@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: > I can think of two good reasons why so many people are changing their > votes... so far, just about everything on comp.sys.amiga.tech is > cross posted from comp.sys.amiga . I think it has already reached the > point of no return (due to people blindly doing a reply from > rn without editing the newsgroups it goes to). I disagree, surely we readers, and especially posters can change this. After all, new threads are started, and people can make the effort to decide which *one* group to post the article in. Note that you used the past tense (or some form of the past tense, been a long time since English) for both of your reasons. If valid, they seem largely due to the fact that .tech was born "illegitimately," thus creating much of the cross-posting and confusion. (No blame ascribed to Bob Page here.) People (myself included) wanted cross-posting because we couldn't get .tech. That seems a legitimate reason. Also, many .tech-type articles were posted to .amiga simply because .tech didn't officially exist for them. So the conditions you believe are causing the "no" votes would not have existed if .tech hadn't been born prematurely. Anyway, perhaps the powers that be would permit an extension, since there seems to be either a misunderstanding or something stranger going on. The purpose and purity of .tech, once it exists officially, needs to be emphasized. (Assuming your reasons are the real ones.) Ken Chiu
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (04/02/88)
In article <8804020242.AA24241@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: | I hope you all learned something about the net today.... people are | people. In this case, only a very few people recognized the problem, | and they were all shot down when they tried to explain it. ^^^^ ^^^^ Thanks for the testimonial, Matt. But is it true or is it Brice's April fool? -- Marco Papa -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Diga!" -- Leo Schwab [quoting Rick Unland] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -- Marco Papa -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (04/03/88)
It was an April Fools joke. I didn't want to make it completely obvious, so I hid some goodies in the header lines. Witness: >Date: 1 Apr 88 21:46:12 GMT >References: <8100000A.48414841@guru.amiga.rkm> >Comment: I think Loof Lirpa started it! The guru number means "Bogus Exception." The Task ID is hex for HAHA. Loof Lirpa is a satanic backwards message. A quick grep through talk.bizzare would turn up no amiga.tech conspiracy. Actually, the comp.sys.amiga.tech group will pass with flying colors, almost 200 votes. Expect the final tally in a couple of days. Kinda takes the fun out when you have to explain it. Forgive me for being subtle. Flames by email please. ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. page@swan.ulowell.edu ulowell!page
jesup@pawl8.pawl.rpi.edu (Randell E. Jesup) (04/03/88)
In article <8804020242.AA24241@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes:
[ He says that people are changing their votes because of xposting between
comp.sys.amiga.tech and comp.sys.amiga. ]
I have to disagree. The reason that some people are xposting (and I
am not one of them) is because .tech only exists in a part of the net, due
to some backbone people deciding not to carry it until the new vote passes.
Many, many people can't read it. This causes mass confusion as to where
things should be posted.
Hopefully, after it gets to all the net, this will decrease. And even
for now, if you have a reasonable news reader, you still will only see the
message once. In fact, the .tech group has so far been fairly technical,
with discussion centering on stuff like IPC and hard disks. The fact that
technical articles are posted to .amiga is something you will have to live
with Matt. For now, many people have no choice. In the future, some people
probably still will, but so what? If you MUST read every technical article
on the net, then read both, and don't complain. If there were only one
group, it would be all mixed together anyway. If you want to cut down on the
amount of non-technical stuff you read (lack of time, for example), then
just read the .tech group, and live with missing some stuff.
Sheesh!
(I do understand wanting to read everything, I'm an information junkie myself.)
// Randell Jesup Lunge Software Development
// Dedicated Amiga Programmer 13 Frear Ave, Troy, NY 12180
\\// beowulf!lunge!jesup@steinmetz.UUCP (518) 272-2942
\/ (uunet!steinmetz!beowulf!lunge!jesup) BIX: rjesup
(-: The Few, The Proud, The Architects of the RPM40 40MIPS CMOS Micro :-)papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) (04/03/88)
In article <5935@swan.ulowell.edu| page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) writes: |It was an April Fools joke. You didn't fool me, pal :-) [see message in comp.sys.amiga.tech]. -- Marco Papa -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu "There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Diga!" -- Leo Schwab [quoting Rick Unland] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -- Marco Papa -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (04/03/88)
April Fools. Bob was making a joke and I got caught (forgot about the net delay.... didn't read the message on the 1st). Still, hopefully a few people got scared into thinking, cause everything I said was tru. -Matt
page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (04/04/88)
Brian Reid's "arbitron" report just came out (see news.lists & news.groups), and it was pretty interesting. Thought you might like to see a highlight: Subject: TOP 40 NEWSGROUPS IN ORDER BY POPULARITY (MAR 88) Message-ID: <12417@decwrl.DEC.COM> Date: 3 Apr 88 03:41:57 GMT TOP 40 NEWSGROUPS IN ORDER BY POPULARITY A companion posting explains the statistics and the algorithms that produced them. +-- Rank | +-- Estimated total number of people who read the group, worldwide. | | +-- Actual number of readers in sampled population | | | +-- Propagation: how many sites receive this group at all | | | | +-- Recent traffic (messages per month) | | | | | +-- Recent traffic (kilobytes per month) | | | | | | +-- Participation ratio | | | | | | | +-- Cost ratio: $US/month/reader | | | | | | | | +-- Share: % of newsreaders | | | | | | | | | who read this group. V V V V V V V V V 13 21000 1637 97% 168 306.2 8 0.10 8.8% comp.sys.amiga.tech Analysis: almost 9% of the net reads amiga.tech over 21000 readers (8K more than comp.sys.amiga) 97% of the sites on the net get it. Yes, I understand some of the problems with Arbitron's "self-selected sample," but it's still not bad for an unofficial newsgroup. ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. page@swan.ulowell.edu ulowell!page
farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) (04/07/88)
In article <5965@swan.ulowell.edu> page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) writes: >Brian Reid's "arbitron" report just came out (see news.lists & news.groups), >and it was pretty interesting. Thought you might like to see a highlight: > > 13 21000 1637 97% 168 306.2 8 0.10 8.8% comp.sys.amiga.tech Brian has already stated that this arbitron is pretty much useless - if you noticed, comp.sys.amiga doesn't appear ANYWHERE on that list! You'll have a hard time convincing me that comp.sys.amiga.tech has overtaken comp.sys.amiga in volume... -- Michael J. Farren | "INVESTIGATE your point of view, don't just {ucbvax, uunet, hoptoad}! | dogmatize it! Reflect on it and re-evaluate unisoft!gethen!farren | it. You may want to change your mind someday." gethen!farren@lll-winken.llnl.gov ----- Tom Reingold, from alt.flame