jgd@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (John G Dobnick) (03/11/89)
[North American distribution only, since that's where the developers of these packages reside.] Since neither C NEWS nor 3.0 NEWS has actually been released to the general public yet (right?), I would like to propose the following "packaging requirement". ANY and ALL news transport/reader systems shall include a set of the "netiquette" articles to "prime" a newly created news spool directory. I suggest this to prevent the following situation, of which I had personal experience as a neophyte news user. A site intially installs news and obtains a feed. A user starts reading news and, in posting a followup to some article, violates one of the MAJOR proscriptions of netnews. Said user gets "corrected" (and flamed unmercifully) for this transgression and is told to read the news.announce.newusers articles. However, there is a small problem -- since this is a new site, there AREN'T ANY news.announce.newuser articles to read! (In my personal experience, the n.a.n articles arrives two full weeks AFTER the incident.) To prevent this situation at new sites, I suggest a set of n.a.n articles be included in each full news distribution. Source archive copies of news should, in my opinion, be so modified. If C NEWS and 3.0 NEWS are released in this manner, the archive question is resolved. I believe this will help *new* sites, and is thus a "win". I also propose the following change to any and ALL newsreader programs. When a new user is detected (perhaps by an empty .newsrc file?), create a "prototype" .newsrc file for that user which displays news.announce.newusers FIRST! This will expose the new user to the "rules of the game" as the DEFAULT action of news. Of secondary importance, most other newsgroups should be marked UN-subscribed. Exceptions would be selected local groups and such things as news.lists, and the various "important" groups (the "general" groups, news.announce.important, etc.). [Personally, I would place the talk and soc groups at the very bottom of the list -- personal prejudice.] I believe that this (first) change, in and of itself, will prevent many missteps by neophyte users. (The second won't hurt things, either.) Unfortunately this requires changes to *many* programs. Since at least one of these new NEWS releases includes newsreader programs, this seems a good time to implement this policy. This will, I believe, make news more "user friendly" (I dislike this term, but "kinder and gentler" seems a bit too much), especially to non-computer-oriented or computer-phobic persons. This change will not only assist new sites, but individual new users, and is thus also a "win". [I would also go one step further and make n.a.n a PERMANENTLY subscribed newsgroup! This, however, is a subject to be dealt with elsewhere.] (I had proposed these changes about two years ago and was hooted down. Some people agreed with me. More disagreed -- and quite loudly, too. The general reaction then, as *I* interpreted it, was "it won't cure the problem at *all* sites, so let's do nothing!", and "nothing" was done. Inertia is a powerful force to tangle with -- I hope we can overcome it this time around. Perhaps a Bran' Spankin' New news system will do it.) Burned once by ignorance of netnews; trying to save others the discomfort. -- John G Dobnick Computing Services Division @ University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee INTERNET: jgd@csd4.milw.wisc.edu UUCP: <backbone>!uwvax!uwmcsd1!jgd "Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight." -- William Safire
evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch) (03/13/89)
In article <1522@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>, John G Dobnick writes: >I suggest a set of n.a.n articles be included in each full news distribution. >I also propose the following change to any and ALL newsreader programs. > When a new user is detected (perhaps by an empty .newsrc file?), > create a "prototype" .newsrc file for that user which displays > news.announce.newusers FIRST! > Of secondary importance, most other newsgroups should be marked > UN-subscribed. Exceptions would be selected local groups and such > things as news.lists, and the various "important" groups (the > "general" groups, news.announce.important, etc.). Good idea! I would suggest taking a hint from Xenix, which has a number of default actions stored away in /etc/default/*. Perhaps a small feature could allow the news administrator at a site to create a prototype .newsrc, which would be used for each news reader without an existing .newsrc file. That prototype, as shipped with the distribution source, would be created along John's guidelines. This would allow each news admin to decide what groups are 'important' to first-time readers on his/her own site, and would take into account the differences in the naming of local newsgroups. PS. Being as these suggestions are for the news reading software only, I suspect they have little relevance to those folk working on Cnews. -- Evan Leibovitch, SA of System Telly, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario evan@telly.on.ca / {uunet!attcan,utzoo}!telly!evan / (416) 452-0504 You can lead a herring to water, but you have to walk really fast or he'll die
barnett@crdgw1.crd.ge.com (Bruce Barnett) (03/14/89)
In article <1522@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>, jgd@csd4 (John G Dobnick) writes: >I also propose the following change to any and ALL newsreader programs. > > When a new user is detected (perhaps by an empty .newsrc file?), > create a "prototype" .newsrc file for that user which displays > news.announce.newusers FIRST! This will expose the new user to > the "rules of the game" as the DEFAULT action of news. This is in the current USENET software. Of course you have to be familiar with the proper configuration option. But I always try to sort the active file into an order that makes sense to new users, with n.a.n first, and local newsgroups next, etc. -- Bruce G. Barnett barnett@ge-crd.ARPA, barnett@steinmetz.ge.com uunet!steinmetz!barnett
root@libove.UUCP (Jay M. Libove) (03/18/89)
Regarding the suggestions below: I fully support Mr. Dobnick's suggestions regarding default state for the /usr/spool/news/news/announce/newusers/ directory and ~/.newsrc subscription lists. I have always tried to get people to read the netiquette documents before using the networks, and think that this setup would be a great help to the network in keeping down understandable but still extremely annoying wrong behaviour by new users. From article <1522@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>, by jgd@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (John G Dobnick): > ANY and ALL news transport/reader systems shall include a set > of the "netiquette" articles to "prime" a newly created news > spool directory. > > When a new user is detected (perhaps by an empty .newsrc file?), > create a "prototype" .newsrc file for that user which displays > news.announce.newusers FIRST! This will expose the new user to > the "rules of the game" as the DEFAULT action of news. > > (I had proposed these changes about two years ago and was hooted down. > Some people agreed with me. More disagreed -- and quite loudly, too. The > general reaction then, as *I* interpreted it, was "it won't cure the problem > at *all* sites, so let's do nothing!", and "nothing" was done. Inertia is a > powerful force to tangle with -- I hope we can overcome it this time around. > Perhaps a Bran' Spankin' New news system will do it.) I can not understand why you were shot down then. I hope that you are not shot down now. > John G Dobnick > INTERNET: jgd@csd4.milw.wisc.edu ------------- Jay Libove jl42@andrew.cmu.edu, libove@cs.cmu.edu, 5731 Centre Ave, Apt 3 gateway.sei.cmu.edu!libove!libove, jl42@andrew.BITnet, Pittsburgh, PA 15206 psuvax1!pitt!darth!libove!libove, (412) 362-8983 or uunet!nfsun!libove!libove
cks@ziebmef.uucp (Chris Siebenmann) (03/19/89)
In article <803@telly.UUCP> evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch) writes: | In article <1522@csd4.milw.wisc.edu>, John G Dobnick writes: | >I suggest a set of n.a.n articles be included in each full news distribution. Excellent suggestion; I third it. Feeds for a new site should also take responsibility for sending the new site the current messages in n.a.n (everyone has 30+ day expires on news.announce.newusers already, right?). |>I also propose the following change to any and ALL newsreader programs. |> When a new user is detected (perhaps by an empty .newsrc file?), |> create a "prototype" .newsrc file for that user which displays |> news.announce.newusers FIRST! It seems to be a well-kept secret that (at least for rn, readnews, and vnews -- those are the only ones we have here) the order of newsgroups in /usr/lib/news/active is the order in which they will appear in a newly-created .newsrc. I exploited this feature when I set up our news system to place various newsgroups up near the top (such as a newsgroup for local bulletins, our local general conversations one, and news.announce.newusers). |> Of secondary importance, most other newsgroups should be marked |> UN-subscribed. Exceptions would be selected local groups and such |> things as news.lists, and the various "important" groups (the |> "general" groups, news.announce.important, etc.). | Good idea! I would suggest taking a hint from Xenix, which has a number of | default actions stored away in /etc/default/*. Perhaps a small feature | could allow the news administrator at a site to create a prototype .newsrc, | which would be used for each news reader without an existing .newsrc file. I'm not completely comfortable with this idea; I suspect a lot of people simply wouldn't find many newsgroups because they have no idea at all that they exist. Perhaps what we need is a special flag in the .newsrc entry for groups that causes the newsreader to only offer them to readers (along with an explanation of what the newsgroup is for) when they're caught up on all the other normally-flagged newsgroups; of course, after a newsgroup has been read the first time, this flag would be stripped. Thus what would happen is that the first time reader would go through all of n.a.newusers and whatever appropriate newsgroups, and then rn (say) would prompt with something like: **** N unread articles in comp.sys.amiga (Commodore Amiga: info&uses, but no programs.) Do you want to try this newsgroup? [ny] (note that the description is from /usr/lib/news/newsgroups, and the default is NOT to read the group). -- "Though you may disappear, you're not forgotten here And I will say to you, I will do what I can do" Chris Siebenmann uunet!{utgpu!moore,attcan!telly}!ziebmef!cks cks@ziebmef.UUCP or .....!utgpu!{,ontmoh!,ncrcan!brambo!}cks