xanthian@saturn.ADS.COM (Metafont Consultant Account) (02/26/90)
In article <38951@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: [...] >If you want formal charters, the best thing to do would be to >seriously consider a Great Renaming, where the entire namespace is >rethought and stuff Put In Its Place. That'll be a way to figure out >what domains need to exist, how to define them and what belongs in >them, and would be the only want to get a consensus opinion on >things. Then all we'd need to do is implement it. I'm not at all sure how important this is, but I had noticed a great lack of symmetry in the current newsgroup namespace which might lend a small impetus to another Great Renaming. Once upon a time, there was USENet, standing in splendid isolation, and all was well with the naming heirarchy. Now, however, we have alt, bionet, biz, clari, pubnet, and vmsnet, at least, sharing a namespace with the USENet domains, and accessible at a typical site from the same newsreading software in a single session. Is it perhaps time to exhibit an overdue bit of humility, to recognize the current realities, and to subsume the USENet domains under a single, network identifying toplevel name (maybe "usenet"), just to help folks sort out which newsgroups actually fall under the USENet newsgroup rules, as opposed to the groups falling under rules for other networks? If so, this would provide the chance to sort out the hobby, academic, insult, diatribe, commercial, chat, cultural, interpersonal, humor, and other domains of interest once again. I have to admit, I think the process will be much more difficult without the recognized "backbone cabel" that provided leadership for the last Great Renaming. To replace that lack, I would suggest, if the process begins, that it take place in a moderated newsgroup ruled by an ironhanded despot who only posts digests of ANONYMOUS arguments (to avoid introducing existing net.animosities into the discussion process). That much work probably requires a nearly full time individual, which may require funding by either a government agency or a concerned organization; we should probably also grant that individual before we start final authority to make all group placement/naming decisions. [I doubt the ability to do such a task by consensus, in this or any other group. Design by committee is a known losing mechanism.] I would suggest an academic type with a specialization in library science or some similar practical knowledge organizing discipline, if one is available and willing. Almost any naming done by any single mind would be an improvement over the current hodgepodge, and we should recognize before beginning that the result will have, for each of us, namings and group placements that we would gladly go to the ramparts to defeat, yet must accept to achieve a finished renaming most of which suits us. -- xanthian@ads.com xanthian@well.sf.ca.us (Kent Paul Dolan) Again, my opinions, not the account furnishers'.
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (02/27/90)
xanthian@saturn.ADS.COM (Metafont Consultant Account) writes: >In article <38951@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >[...] >>If you want formal charters, the best thing to do would be to >>seriously consider a Great Renaming, where the entire namespace is >>rethought and stuff Put In Its Place. That'll be a way to figure out >>what domains need to exist, how to define them and what belongs in >>them, and would be the only want to get a consensus opinion on >>things. Then all we'd need to do is implement it. >I'm not at all sure how important this is, but I had noticed a great >lack of symmetry in the current newsgroup namespace which might lend a >small impetus to another Great Renaming. I'm not sure we're ready for a Great Renaming. I started looking at it late last year and then we definitely weren't ready. But I think we probably ought to think about it because by deciding what we want out of a Great Renaming we can decide what's right and wrong with USENET today -- and perhaps be able to make the important changes without ripping it all apart and putting it back together again. At least, we'll understand where we are adn where we want to be, which is a step on the path towards getting there. >Is it perhaps time to exhibit an overdue bit of humility, to recognize >the current realities, and to subsume the USENet domains under a >single, network identifying toplevel name (maybe "usenet"), just to >help folks sort out which newsgroups actually fall under the USENet >newsgroup rules, as opposed to the groups falling under rules for >other networks? Actually, I'd go the other direction and make each top-level domain somewhat autonomous, with (perhaps) its own steering committee or oversee person/group, it's own version of news.announce, its own versioon of news.groups and etc. Arguably, the net is big enough now that the people who are qualified to make decisions about what belongs in comp.* are not the same people who are best qualified to decide about sci.* or rec.*. (and, also obviously, there are a LOT of issues to be resolved in that not-yet-proposal, like how to deal with something that is ambiguous on what group is best for it, or for something that simply doesn't fit well -- there has to be some way of deciding what domain, then a way of deciding a place within that domain.) >That much work probably requires a nearly full time individual, which >may require funding by either a government agency or a concerned >organization; we should probably also grant that individual before we >start final authority to make all group placement/naming decisions. >[I doubt the ability to do such a task by consensus, in this or any >other group. Design by committee is a known losing mechanism.] I dunno. The last renaming went by committee and with lots of feedback. Ultimately someone had to make final decisions, but it was definitely by consensus. The current c.s.m reorganization is strongly consensual and is looking less and less like my original proposal as time goes on (and better and better, I might add). Someone (or group of someones) has to make final decisions, but "design by committee" is not inherently bad; "design by a committed unwilling to make a decision" is bad. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> chuq@apple.com <+> [This is myself speaking] I don't know what's scarier: President Reagan saying he had no inkling of his aides doing anything illegal, or an ex-president who uses the word inkling.
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (02/27/90)
In article <38983@apple.Apple.COM> chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes: >I'm not sure we're ready for a Great Renaming. I started looking at it late >last year and then we definitely weren't ready. But I think we probably >ought to think about it because by deciding what we want out of a Great >Renaming we can decide what's right and wrong with USENET today Perhaps "what's wrong with USENET today" is that some think that names are the biggest issue on the net, and we spend our time discussing names, renaming and renamings. I am sorry folks, deciding what names to give to newsgroups just isn't what USENET's about. Oddly, reading news.* seems to give me the impression that everybody who posts here thinks it is. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) (02/27/90)
In article <103276@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: >I am sorry folks, deciding what names to give to newsgroups just isn't >what USENET's about. Oddly, reading news.* seems to give me the impression >that everybody who posts here thinks it is. Sigh. If you want to read about toy boats, read rec.toy.boats. If you want to read about cooking or VMS or astronomy or APL or tai chi, go read the appropriate group. But if you want to read about news administration issues, read THIS group. And newsgroup naming is an important administration issue. -- "We must never forget that if the war in Vietnam \ $ Tom Neff is lost... the right of free speech will be X tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET extinguished throughout the world." -- RN 10/27/65 $ \ uunet!bfmny0!tneff
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (02/28/90)
In article <15208@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes: >But if you want to read about news administration >issues, read THIS group. And newsgroup naming is an important >administration issue. May I be so bold as to ask why? Let's not just run around asserting that it's important or that it isn't. The vocal minority that posts here does, I concede, act as though it's important. But that doesn't make it so. So I'll show why it isn't important: o) There are many other conferencing networks out there. The ones that I know of don't debate naming, or consider it worthy of debate. Somebody whose job it is picks names, and to be honest, I never see complaints. In fact, nobody even discusses it. The names are there. People use them. There would be nothing wrong if other nets considered names 50% of administration and USENET was 70%. But USENET is 70% and most everybody else is 1%. That's wrong. o) The names don't mean a lot, once they are picked. I hear people saying, "we can't call it fish because not all aquaria have fish -- it's too restrictive." Are they joking? What network have they been reading? USENET is full of tangents and people discussing astrophysics in rec.humor. And you're worried that it will somehow be illegal to talk aquatic plants in a fish group? Get real! o) The distribution is important, but it is the decision of the individual sites. The name should not be the distribution, and surprise, surprise, in spite of what many people *think*, it isn't any more. Most sites with free links -- even the uunet <-> mcsun link -- pass all groups now. Sites that cut, cut more finely than the hierarchies allow. If a group gets high volume and I don't want it, I don't carry it, no matter what hierarchy it's in. o) Some things just aren't done well by committee and votes. Names are one. Would you pick C keywords by voting on it? No -- you delegate a small group (or better yet, 1 or 2 people) and let them decide. You are assured they will do no worse than a committee of 500, and it's very likely they'll do better. Names do have an importance, but like street names in town, you don't have a referendum on them. And they do get debated, but you don't see city council spending half its time on naming the streets. They are just labels, and all that matters is that they be reasonably clear and consistent. ------------- So there's some of my case. Now you show me why the planets will fly off the sun if we don't engage in more megabytes of debate about what name is right for this group or that group. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (02/28/90)
"Other Networks" have a central authority, Brad. Usenet inherently doesn't.
Discussion about other networks, libraries, and so on are interesting, I
guess, but they aren't relevant to Usenet.
--
_--_|\ Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.uu.net>.
/ \
\_.--._/ Xenix Support -- it's not just a job, it's an adventure!
v "Have you hugged your wolf today?" `-_-'tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) (02/28/90)
If you have ever read a message posted to the wrong group you may get a hint why naming is important. People involved in naming debates at the time of newsgroup creation sometimes act as if any name whatsoever would do -- what's the problem, after all WE know what we're talking about, right? The problem is that after the group's created and the smart people who created it drift off somewhere else to do other things with their lives, the well- or poorly-named group sticks around for OTHER people to discover. If the name doesn't tell a NEW person what belongs there, he'll go post it to misc.misc or comp.lang.c or whatever newsgroup he happens to be reading at the moment. This is true for hierarchies as well as 'leaf' groupnames. The name structure of the net should concisely and accurately reflect the branches of knowledge, inquiry and activity it supports. Precisely to the extent that it DOESN'T do so, pointless flaming and name debates and grousing fill the net. So it's important to keep these things in mind. It's also important for confirmed net addicts like Brad and myself to remember the needs of LESS addicted users. Of course *we* could get good use out of the net regardless of *how* poorly or weirdly it was structured. But that's no excuse. It's our responsibility to try and make it as useful as possible to *all* those who need it, including those less expert than ourselves.
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (03/01/90)
In article <15215@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes: >If you have ever read a message posted to the wrong group you may get a >hint why naming is important. I would venture that I have seen far more debate about names than I have seen messages posted to the wrong group because the name confused the user. I would also venture that any name is likely to attract misdirected postings, some albiet less than others, but that the difference is certainly less than the volume of debate on names. So is the effort to change "sci" to "sci,!sci.aquaria" for example. And I didn't say names were of trivial importance, or at least didn't mean to say that. Just that their importance is far less than the volume of traffic here would indicated, and more to the point, choosing the most popular isn't the answer anyway. I agree 100% with the other points -- that a name is there for outsiders more than for insiders. All this is an excellent reason not to choose the name by popularity amongst those interested in the group. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker) (03/01/90)
In article <103905@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: >In article <15208@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes: [...] >> And newsgroup naming is an important >>administration issue. > >May I be so bold as to ask why? Indeed. But names *are* important; just not all the time and to everyone. Can we not adapt existing or proposed tools? The groups could be called 1, 2, 3, ... (or, violet, indigo, blue or un, deux, trois, or whatever we agreed). In C News, the group can be re-named on arrival; so *I* can call group 47 "rec.aquaria", *you* can call it "sci.fish" and *he* can call it "sky.blue.pink.junk". The same effect can be achieved if Barry Shein's "groupcap" file ever stops being pie-in-the-sky, takes off, and reaches the ground [:-)]. OK, so I can now propose a new group called "3456", with as its charter blah, blah, blah, it gets voted on, and we can all call it whatever we like. How's that? Well, I suppose we need a list of suggested names, so the checkgroups messages look a bit like: ... 3456 [discussion of silly proposals] sci.pie, a.rose.by.another.name ... Oh yes, and we need a filter, so that every occurrence of "sci.pie" on my outgoing news: "Over on sci.pie, they're talking about this right now!" gets turned into: "Over on \*3456, they're talking about this right now!" so that it can be turned into: "Over on a.rose.by.another.name, they're talking about this right now!" on your system. Except for checkgroups and other metanews, of course! >Names do have an importance, but like street names in town, you don't have >a referendum on them. And they do get debated, but you don't see city >council spending half its time on naming the streets. Depends on your town! There was much time wasted in the UK over the conversion of "Selous Street" to "Mandela Street". -- Andy Walker, Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK. anw@maths.nott.ac.uk
fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes) (03/02/90)
In article <15215@bfmny0.UU.NET>, tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes: > If you have ever read a message posted to the wrong group you may get a > hint why naming is important. Good theory but with the number of people that can't figure out that misc.wanted is where you post things you want and misc.forsale is where you post things that are for sale, I am not sure if this is correct. -- Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155 (206)FOR-UNIX uunet!pilchuck!ssc!fyl or attmail!ssc!fyl (206)527-3385
merlyn@iwarp.intel.com (Randal Schwartz) (03/02/90)
In article <1990Mar1.150553.20713@maths.nott.ac.uk>, anw@maths (Dr A. N. Walker) writes: | >Names do have an importance, but like street names in town, you don't have | >a referendum on them. And they do get debated, but you don't see city | >council spending half its time on naming the streets. | | Depends on your town! There was much time wasted in the UK over | the conversion of "Selous Street" to "Mandela Street". Or the current battle in Portland, Oregon, where a street the city council renamed from Union Street to Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard is being renamed *back* by popular election (if the pollsters are correct). Weird. Just another Portland near-resident, -- /=Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ==========\ | on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Beaverton, Oregon, USA, Sol III | | merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!any-MX-mailer-like-uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn | \=Cute Quote: "Welcome to Portland, Oregon, home of the California Raisins!"=/
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (03/03/90)
In article <KQ+10PDxds13@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: >"Other Networks" have a central authority, Brad. Usenet inherently doesn't. >Discussion about other networks, libraries, and so on are interesting, I >guess, but they aren't relevant to Usenet. Of course they are not identical, but as the closest thing around, to suggest that they aren't relevant doesn't make any sense. Whether fish are science or hobby -- that's something not relevant to USENET if you ask me. We can learn a lot from other nets -- not just the centrally controlled ones, but the USENET similar ones, too -- and they can learn from us. I am disturbed by the sentiment that this is not true -- that experience there has no relevance. The reason they never argue about names on Compuserve or a BBS may indeed be that a central authority exists. The point I was making was that people who make their living from (and people who spend their livings on) networks seem to universally think names are a minor issue, not something subject to debate. If Compuserve thought it would please users to have them vote on forum names and structure, they would do it. They're in the business of pleasing users. Not only that, the money would roll in as they billed people at the hourly rate for all the debate about names. They choose not to do so. Central control of the namespace is possible -- I would even say desireable. Unfortunately, people have gotten into their minds that naming groups is very important, and that the name czar would have some great mystical power -- too much power to put in one place. ("Gasp, he gets to decide if it's rec.pets.fish or sci.aquaria? I want to bear his children. Oooh!") I think the opposite could (should?) happen. We would pretty much forget about names, and with luck, deal with more important issues, like what groups there should be instead of what they will be called, and what direction the software might take ... and others yet to come, I would hope. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473