haitex@pnet01.cts.com (Wade Bickel) (01/31/88)
NEW SUGGESTION FOR SPLITTING UP amiga/comp-amiga. --------------------------- I finally am able to read news.groups. I was expecting a raging debate as to how to or whether to split up this group. Instead I found a news group with hundreds of messages, of which only a handfull were about splitting comp.sys.amiga. I assume others have the same difficulty getting to news.groups that I've run into? (I still have not figured out how to post to it!) Well, I've put some thought into this, and this article will contain my suggestion for how to split up comp.sys.amiga. First, however, I would like to discuss what I feel to be the relevant considerations. I'll try to keep this breif. After looking at the previous suggestion to split comp.sys.amiga into two or more groups and the few responses that were posted, it seemed to me these are the issues we must consider: 1) Conservation of reading time. If comp.sys.amiga grows in proportions to the growth of the Amiga market, it is likely that there will soon be too many postings for many individuals to follow. As key people find keeping up with the net too time consuming they will, of necessity, have to stop following it. RECENTLY IT SEEMS TO ME A NUMBER OF C= PEOPLE HAVE STOP- PED REGULARLY FOLLOWING COMP.SYS.AMIGA! From the nature of the response patterns of C= messages I also think quite a few who used to read the board now respond mostly to postings referenced by someone else or which were also sent direct via mail. THESE ARE THE PEOPLE I WANT TO EN- COURAGE TO FOLLOW THE DISCUSSIONS, ESPECIALLY THE TECHNICAL POSTINGS! 2) A simple two-way split (ie: add group comp.sys.amiga.tech) would probably result in comp.sys.amiga degenerating into chatter. What reduces this now is the Flaming over non-technical threads that last too long. 3) A multi-way split is too complicated, for us and the Net GODS. Now for my solution (previously sent in a less thought out version to Bryce Nesbit {does my mail get to him??}). What I suggest is that we use the keyword field in the following manner. Reserve the keyword ".tech" for designating a technical posting. Furthermore, for future expansion, reserve the use of "." as the first character of a keyword for "sanctioned" keywords only (in the begining only ".tech"). Thus any keyword could be placed in the keywords feild that does not begin with ".". The immeadiate effect of this will be that those who must filter their reading will be able to do so. In the future however, more sanctioned keywords could be added. The keywords might be ".tech", ".intuition", ".hardware", ".graphics", ".printers", ".product_comments", etc. These would be used to create a filter to sift the postings. Ideally I might have a readnews filter defined as something like this: filter := {(!.printers) & (.graphics | .intuition)} and I would recieve only those postings which had to do with intuition or graphics but not printers. Combine with non-santioned keywords, specific articles could be filtered, as in filter := {product_comments & ASDG} would return postings about ASDG products. Finally, I would like one added feature. Filter by author sould also be available. ie: Some people's postings I always want to read, and there are a few who I never want to read. These should also be possible fields. How would you use this? Well, I figure the user creates a prioritised filter specification and also indicates the number of messages he/she wishes to read. The system would then return that number of postings, according to the filter. BEST OF ALL, THIS SYSTEM WOULD BE ALMOST TOTALLY TRANSPARENT TO THE CURRENT STRUCTURE OF COMP.SYS.AMIGA AND WOULD REQUIRE (ALMOST?) NO SUPERVISION BY THE NET GODS. Please send me E-Mail with your comments, as this is not yet an official proposal. I'm not quite sure what one does to make an official proposal. Thanks, Wade. Thank you, Wade. UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!haitex ARPA: crash!pnet01!haitex@nosc.mil INET: haitex@pnet01.CTS.COM
jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle) (02/01/88)
Let's just create comp.sys.amiga.games and move all the game-related discussions to that group. This would cut volume in comp.sys.amiga by perhaps half. John Nagle
schein@cbmvax.UUCP (Dan Schein CATS) (02/02/88)
In article <17291@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle) writes: > > Let's just create comp.sys.amiga.games and move all the game-related >discussions to that group. This would cut volume in comp.sys.amiga by >perhaps half. > > John Nagle OR how about -> comp.sys.amiga & comp.sys.amiga.other Then all the Non-technical Amiga debates (wars?) like Shareware, Pirates, ST vs Amiga, ect, ect could could be moved. Also other items of the non-techinical type (Read: Kill file material) can be moved out of comp.sys.amiga including things like Johns idea of games. [Anti-Flame Filler] Please note: I used the term "Non-technical" and not UnNeeded or something on that order. I feel these discussions help to raise valid questions and on ocassion a new answer or opion, but I do feel that these discussions do not belong in comp.sys.amiga -- Dan Schein uucp: {ihnp4|allegra|burdvax|rutgers}!cbmvax!schein Commodore AMIGA ARPANET: cbmvax!schein@uunet.uu.net 1200 Wilson Drive Bix: dschein Plink: Dan*CATS West Chester PA 19380 phone: (215) 431-9100 ext. 9542 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ All spelling mistakes are a result of my efforts to avoid education :-) +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ I help Commodore by supporting the AMIGA. Commodore supports me by allowing me to form my own suggestions and comments.
eric@hector.UUCP (Eric Lavitsky) (02/04/88)
In article <3254@cbmvax.UUCP> schein@cbmvax.UUCP (Dan Schein CATS) writes: >In article <17291@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle) writes: >> >> Let's just create comp.sys.amiga.games and move all the game-related >>discussions to that group. This would cut volume in comp.sys.amiga by >>perhaps half. >> >> John Nagle > > OR how about -> comp.sys.amiga & comp.sys.amiga.other > Hmmm - '.other' is a little too vague/nondescript and doesn't fit in well with current net naming conventions. I suggest that we either take the Mac group's route: comp.sys.amiga comp.sys.amiga.tech <- here the former is the general group or a 'typical' naming scheme: comp.sys.amiga comp.sys.amiga.misc <- here the latter is the general group I think the first suggestion is better, since people who want to start more technical discussions can take the initiative to break off from the other group. In the latter scheme, people will just continue posting to comp.sys.amiga like they always have - we know how the net behaves, eh? ;-) Eric ARPA: eric@topaz.rutgers.edu "Lithium is no longer available UUCP: ...{wherever!}ulysses!eric on credit..." ...{wherever!}rutgers!topaz!eric - from Buckaroo Banzai SNAIL: 34 Maplehurst Ln, Piscataway, NJ 08854