news@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Network News) (09/26/89)
Maybe this is a good time to consider a formal newsgroup deletion procedure. I was poking through the news directories here and discovered what appear to be three inactive newsgroups: directory modification date --------- ----------------- /usr/spool/news/soc/politics/arms-d Mar 23 1989 /usr/spool/news/comp/os/cpm/amethyst Mar 10 1989 /usr/spool/news/comp/theory/info-retrieval Dec 6 1988 I would consider any group that has had zero activity for six months a likely candidate for the axe. Certainly any group that has been inactive for twelve months or more is dead. Can newsgroups die or are they immortal?
david@jane.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (David Robinson) (09/27/89)
In article <3137@ur-cc.UUCP> leadley@cc.rochester.edu writes: > Maybe this is a good time to consider a formal newsgroup deletion >procedure. I was poking through the news directories here and discovered >what appear to be three inactive newsgroups: > [...] >I would consider any group that has had zero activity for six months a likely >candidate for the axe. Certainly any group that has been inactive for >twelve months or more is dead. > Can newsgroups die or are they immortal? Why bother deleting inactive groups? They are only taking up one inode on your disk and one line in your active file. Low and no volume groups are really not a problem. The only good reason I have heard is that some small 16 bit machines have limits that become painful when there are too many groups, but how many 16 bit machines are running netnews anymore? David Robinson elroy!david@csvax.caltech.edu ARPA david@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov ARPA {cit-vax,ames}!elroy!david UUCP Disclaimer: No one listens to me anyway!
jef@ace.ee.lbl.gov (Jef Poskanzer) (09/27/89)
In the referenced message, leadley@cc.rochester.edu wrote: }/usr/spool/news/soc/politics/arms-d Mar 23 1989 }/usr/spool/news/comp/os/cpm/amethyst Mar 10 1989 }/usr/spool/news/comp/theory/info-retrieval Dec 6 1988 Here's what I find at my site. Zero activity for four to six months: alt.gourmand May 16 1989 moderated ddn.newsletter May 13 1989 moderated inet alt.sources.amiga Apr 28 1989 moderated comp.lang.idl Apr 14 1989 inet soc.politics.arms-d Apr 3 1989 moderated Zero activity for over six months: comp.theory.info-retrieval Dec 20 1988 moderated comp.society Oct 29 1988 moderated Does anyone besides me detect a pattern here? ^^^^^^^^^ } Can newsgroups die or are they immortal? See .sig quote below, which I swear was chosen randomly. --- Jef Jef Poskanzer pokey@well.sf.ca.us {ucbvax, apple, hplabs}!well!pokey "Immortality consists largely of boredom." -- Zefrem Cochrane
woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) (09/27/89)
In article <1989Sep26.212755.8458@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> david@jane.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (David Robinson) writes: >Why bother deleting inactive groups? They are only taking up one inode >on your disk and one line in your active file. (This is a form letter. This question has been asked and answered so many times that it has probably set a USENET record by now, and ought to be included in the news.announce.newusers postings) The problem with creating extraneous newsgroups is not a network resource issue, it is a HUMAN resource issue. The more newsgroups there are, the harder it is to find the right group to post in. Secondly, naming issues are VERY important. It seems clear that we can handle a lot more newsgroups if we ensure that they are placed properly within the hierarchy and have well-chosen names. If you look at some of the recent debates over sci.skeptic and soc.rights.human (and even sci.econ vs sci.economics), you can see that this is NOT a trivial issue! If you don't believe that too many newsgroups is a problem, you can either look at the number of articles ALREADY posted to the wrong group because the poster couldn't find the right group, or you can consider the extreme case where every article is it's own newsgroup. Since this is exactly like having no newsgroups at all, it does prove that a line must be drawn SOMEWHERE, or at least that there COULD be such a thing as too many newsgroups. --Greg
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (09/28/89)
In article <4492@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@handies.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes: > The problem with creating extraneous newsgroups is not a network resource >issue, it is a HUMAN resource issue. The more newsgroups there are, the >harder it is to find the right group to post in. >.... > If you don't believe that too many newsgroups is a problem, you can either >look at the number of articles ALREADY posted to the wrong group because >the poster couldn't find the right group ... This answer has been given so many times too, but is it a feeling or are there some fact behind it. How hard is it today to find the right group to post in? Is it harder today than it was before? I will admit that "alt" confuses things a bit, but other than that, how many people feel it's harder? I do not think that we get more articles posted to the wrong group nowadays. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there are less. Particularly if you consider that most accusations of posting to the "wrong" group come in cases like talk.abortion/soc.women where a group has been created to explicitly divert traffic, and people don't know about it. But before net.abortion was created, the strong feeling was that all abortion postings in soc.women were in the "wrong" group because the topic had been done to death there, just as was recently the case for rape. So how about it? It is harder to pick a group today? Are there more mistakes today? My PN program (free to any who want it) helps a little. When you run it with no args, you see something like this: (It draws the menu from the newsgroups file.) -------------------------- Select a newsgroup for your posting by entering menu selections. A "+" after a selection indicates subchoices are available. Type "? <newsgroup>" for information on a particular newsgroup. 1) alt + The Alternative Net Hierarchy. 2) biz + Commercial Newsgroups 3) general Articles that should be read by everyone on your local system. 4) test A place to test postnews or inews. 5) comp + Computation-related newsgroups. 6) misc + Miscellaneous newsgroups, not fitting other categories. 7) news + Newsgroups about News. 8) rec + Newsgroups of a primarily recreational nature. 9) sci + Newsgroups containing scientific contents. 10) soc + Social issue newsgroups. 11) talk + Discussion newsgroups. 12) junk 13) Abort Abort the posting process. 14) Type Group Name Type the name of the desired newsgroup(s). Selection: ----------------------------- (Then in prompts for the subject, edits the article, and performs checks on it and pops up menus for general and group-specific classifications. If the group specific file for soc.women wants to, it can search for the word abortion in the posting and suggest the newsgroups line be modified.) -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) (09/28/89)
In article <22888@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: >In article <4492@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@handies.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes: >> If you don't believe that too many newsgroups is a problem, you can either >>look at the number of articles ALREADY posted to the wrong group because >>the poster couldn't find the right group ... > >I do not think that we get more articles posted to the wrong group >nowadays. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there are less. IF that is true, it is true because we have put some controls on the number of new newsgroups and tried to make sure they were named properly! Can you imagine what it would be like had there not been a great renaming and every group were named net.something? Or if we had let every new newsgroup proposal be implemented without a debate? How many articles do you think we would see in the wrong groups THEN? We have to make the relevant comparison. The comparison Brad is making between the present and the past isn't the issue. The issue is the comparison between the present and the hypothetical future, since the original question is "what harm is there in creating unused newsgroups". Referring to Chuq's recent thread of debating methods on USENET, one reason that group creations lead to flame wars is that we are arguing about the possible future, and as such we don't have any "facts", just speculations. The relevant question here is "would we see more postings to inappropriate groups if we allowed unused newsgroups to be created than we would if we relaxed controls on new newsgroup creations?" --Greg
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (09/28/89)
In article <22888@looking.on.ca>, brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: > So how about it? It is harder to pick a group today? Are there more > mistakes today? Well, have a look over in comp.sys.intel. The current discussion there is whether it's appropriate to talk about xenix on intel 310 boxes there, or in comp.sys.intel.ipsc310, or in comp.unix.xenix. -- Peter da Silva, *NIX support guy @ Ferranti International Controls Corporation. Biz: peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180. Fun: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com. `-_-' "That is not the Usenet tradition, but it's a solidly-entrenched U delusion now." -- brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor)
scott@dtscp1.UUCP (Scott Barman) (09/29/89)
In article <1989Sep26.212755.8458@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> david@jane.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (David Robinson) writes: |Why bother deleting inactive groups? They are only taking up one inode |on your disk and one line in your active file. Low and no volume |groups are really not a problem. The only good reason I have heard |is that some small 16 bit machines have limits that become painful |when there are too many groups, but how many 16 bit machines are running |netnews anymore? How about us System V Release 3 people with that bug that doesn't free inodes under certain circumstances. I just ran into this one as recently as yesterday (along with a bad block in the inode table). However, I think inactive groups are the least of Usenet's problems! -- scott barman 1989 Mets: Wait 'till Next Year! {gatech, emory}!dtscp1!scott
ruiu@dragos.uucp (dragos) (09/29/89)
In article <1989Sep26.212755.8458@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> david@jane.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (David Robinson) writes: >Why bother deleting inactive groups? They are only taking up one inode >on your disk and one line in your active file. Low and no volume >groups are really not a problem. The only good reason I have heard >is that some small 16 bit machines have limits that become painful >when there are too many groups, but how many 16 bit machines are running >netnews anymore? This machine is a 16 bit machine (a 286) and one of my news-neighbors is a PDP-11. Keeping a few extra inodes around is just as painfull here as on a 'bigger' machine. That is to say, not at all. So this is not a good reason. I think groups eventually atrophy and diappear over disk crashes, new software installation etc... I see no reason that we should go out of our to trash dead/quiet groups. If it is really dead, time and equipment failures will nuke it. -- Dragos Ruiu | Programming Languages: alberta!dragos!ruiu | uunet!myrias!dr | find / -name \*\[fF\]77\* -exec rm -rf {} \; bbs: (403) 439-0229 |
jerry@olivey.olivetti.com (Jerry Aguirre) (09/29/89)
In article <22888@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: > 5) comp + Computation-related newsgroups. > 6) misc + Miscellaneous newsgroups, not fitting other categories. > 7) news + Newsgroups about News. Exactly, so we get posting in news.misc about earthquakes, fires, and shootings. All "news" items that could appear in any good "news"paper or television "news" show. This is one place where the great renaming blew it. To paraphrase: "When I use a word it means exactly what other people think it means". They want to post about current events and so "news.*" looks like the place. I would rather see it renamed "usenet" or even "this_board". Most of the masses seem to be familiar with "bulletin board" but news means something different EVERYWHERE else except here. Jerry Aguirre "Earth destroyed in cosmic cataclysm, details at 11"
wsdwgk@eutrc3.urc.tue.nl (g.v.kooij) (09/29/89)
Well I hope some groups do get deleted. I am subscribed to all groups, and every 'n' to the 'read [yn] ?' question takes a second or more, and it would make thing clearer if you knew what some groups were for, and some of them aren't
john@chance.UUCP (John R. MacMillan) (09/30/89)
In article <6342@ficc.uu.net> peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes: |In article <22888@looking.on.ca>, brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: |> So how about it? It is harder to pick a group today? Are there more |> mistakes today? | |Well, have a look over in comp.sys.intel. The current discussion there is |whether it's appropriate to talk about xenix on intel 310 boxes there, or |in comp.sys.intel.ipsc310, or in comp.unix.xenix. Or look in the unix-pc.* groups for the ``I would like to run UNIX on my PC'' and ``How do I make my PC talk to a UNIX box'' articles. Of course I'd be the first to admit that unix-pc is a misleading name. -- John R. MacMillan "Don't you miss it...don't you miss it... john@chance.UUCP Some of you people just about missed it." ...!utcsri!hcr!chance!john -- Talking Heads
mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us (Marc Unangst) (09/30/89)
In article <1989Sep30.034347.11365@chance.UUCP>, john@chance.UUCP (John R. MacMillan) writes: >Or look in the unix-pc.* groups for the ``I would like to run UNIX on >my PC'' and ``How do I make my PC talk to a UNIX box'' articles. Of >course I'd be the first to admit that unix-pc is a misleading name. No, it isn't. The unix-pc.* groups are for discussion of the AT&T 7300 Unix PC and the 3B1. Not for the discussion of PC Unixes. -- Marc Unangst Internet: mju@mudos.ann-arbor.mi.us UUCP : ...!uunet!sharkey!mudos!mju Fidonet : Marc Unangst of 1:120/129.0 BBS : The Starship Enterprise, 1200/2400 bps, +1 313-665-2832
" Maynard) (09/30/89)
In article <4492@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@handies.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes: >In article <1989Sep26.212755.8458@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> david@jane.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (David Robinson) writes: >>Why bother deleting inactive groups? They are only taking up one inode >>on your disk and one line in your active file. >(This is a form letter. This question has been asked and answered so many > times that it has probably set a USENET record by now, and ought > to be included in the news.announce.newusers postings) (This is a form reply. This position, while not universal, has been taken so many times that it has probably set a USENET record by now, and ought to be included in the news.announce.newusers postings) > The problem with creating extraneous newsgroups is not a network resource >issue, it is a HUMAN resource issue. The more newsgroups there are, the >harder it is to find the right group to post in. Secondly, naming issues >are VERY important. It seems clear that we can handle a lot more newsgroups >if we ensure that they are placed properly within the hierarchy and have >well-chosen names. If you look at some of the recent debates over >sci.skeptic and soc.rights.human (and even sci.econ vs sci.economics), you can >see that this is NOT a trivial issue! The problem with not creating newsgroups as subject areas spring up is not a network resource issue (read the BUGS section of rn(1) for one cogent statement on the issue), but a human resource issue. The fewer newsgroups there are, the harder it is to find the right group to post in. The current discussion about shortwave listening is a good case in point: it is nowhere near obvious that SWLing has historically been discussed in rec.ham-radio: witness the recurrent posting about "Is this an appropriate subject for rec.ham-radio?" This is true more generally as well. Every time someone posts "I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, but...", it points out a failure. Further, witness the success of news.newusers.questions: the level of newuser-type questions in other groups has dropped precipitously, simply by providing an obvious place for them...despite the clandestine attempts of some sysadmins to torpedo the group. Naming issues are important, true. They can be divided into two issues: 1) The name chosen doesn't obviously relate to the subject of the group. This one has validity in the current discussion, because it relates directly to the ease of finding a particular group in the hierarchy. 2) The group is in the wrong hierarchy. This one isn't relevant to the current discussion, since the hierarchy that a group lives in matters little in finding the group if it's there at all. Instead, this one involves the distribution that a group will receive. THe best example of this is comp.society.women; it was placed in the comp. hierarchy, over the strenuous objections of a large number of net.admins, primarily to ensure that it would receive comp. distribution instead of soc. (which is somewhat more restricted). (Flames about this one will be cheerfully ignored, as comp.society.women's record speaks clearly for itself: it's much more sociological than technical.) > If you don't believe that too many newsgroups is a problem, you can either >look at the number of articles ALREADY posted to the wrong group because >the poster couldn't find the right group, or you can consider the extreme case >where every article is it's own newsgroup. Since this is exactly like having >no newsgroups at all, it does prove that a line must be drawn SOMEWHERE, >or at least that there COULD be such a thing as too many newsgroups. If you don't believe that too few newsgroups is a problem, you can either look at the number of articles cross-posted to half the known universe and starting with, "I'm not sure this is the place for this, but there's not a rec.foo.bar newsgroup," or you can consider the extreme case where there is just one newsgroup. Since this is exactly like having every article be its own newsgroup, it does prove that a line must be drawn SOMEWHERE, or at least that there could be such a thing as too few newsgroups. All that the extreme case proves is that there's a sinewave curve of utility versus the ratio of newsgroups to articles, and the most utility occurs somewhere in the middle. Greg and I differ on the point of the peak of the curve: I think utility improves when there's an obvious newsgroup for every subject that might be posted, while Greg thinks that utility improves when there's simply a place for each discussion, even if it's not obvious. This is a question for library science. Is there a librarian in the house? :-) -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can jay@splut.conmicro.com (eieio)| adequately be explained by stupidity. {attctc,bellcore}!texbell!splut!jay +---------------------------------------- America works less when you say..."Union Yes!"
epsilon@wet.UUCP (Eric P. Scott) (10/01/89)
In article <1989Sep26.212755.8458@elroy.jpl.nasa.gov> david@jane.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (David Robinson) writes: >Why bother deleting inactive groups? They are only taking up one inode >on your disk and one line in your active file. ...and one line in newsgroups, and one line PER USER in .newsrc
msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) (10/02/89)
> I do not think that we get more articles posted to the wrong group > nowadays. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there are less. Well, here's an example, I think. Newsgroup decisions are supposed to be by general consensus, not consensus of newsadmins. So shouldn't this discussion be in either news.groups or news.misc? No, I'm not attempting to move it myself. -- Mark Brader "'A matter of opinion'[?] I have to say you are SoftQuad Inc., Toronto right. There['s] your opinion, which is wrong, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com and mine, which is right." -- Gene Ward Smith This article is in the public domain.
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (10/02/89)
When I asked if we get more wrong-group mistakes these days than we did in the old days, I was not asking for anecdotal examples. There were plenty of anecdotal examples then, too. Naming them at either time reveals nothing. It seems to me that having a larger namespace can cause problems, but usually only when a topic has been split into a couple of groups. And that means that before the split both subtopics showed up in the same group. And that meant that while both were in the "right" group, those interested in only one of the topics (ie. those who would complain about misdirected programs) were far worse off. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Matt Crawford) (10/03/89)
a person writes:
) The fewer newsgroups there are, the harder it is to find the right
) group to post in.
I don't want to advance the proposition that the author of the above
statement is a pinheaded idiot, but the statement itself is obvious
pinheaded idiocy. Just take it to the limit: if there were only one
newsgroup, it would be trivial to select the right one for each article.
________________________________________________________
Matt Crawford matt@oddjob.uchicago.edutale@pawl.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) (10/04/89)
In <1989Oct1.233028.7753@sq.sq.com> msb@sq.sq.com (Mark Brader) writes:
Mark> Well, here's an example, I think. Newsgroup decisions are supposed to
Mark> be by general consensus, not consensus of newsadmins. So shouldn't this
Mark> discussion be in either news.groups or news.misc?
Not particularly. Especially not news.misc, because it does have
either news.groups or news.admin as an appropriate home. I don't
think it belongs in news.groups because a) that group is already busy
enough with discussion regarding proposals and b) because we are
talking about procedures, not certain groups getting the axe.
Final authority of what is received tends to rest with the news admin
at that machine. (Meta-issues involving overlords of the admin can be
left out of the picture for now.) Since the admin is the one who
really does all of the maintenance regarding USENET there it is quite
appropriate for admins to keep abreast of this discussion. Then they
know what the whole story is when rmgroup messages might be arriving
for previously valid groups. It is not especially necessary for an
admin to read news.groups any more; news.announce.newgroups should be
sufficient.
No one here is suggesting that proven useful groups come under fire;
it is really the dead ones that are the topic. The administrative
issues are the primary thrust and it is quite appropriate here.
Dave
--
(setq mail '("tale@pawl.rpi.edu" "tale@itsgw.rpi.edu" "tale@rpitsmts.bitnet"))" Maynard) (10/04/89)
In article <5629@tank.uchicago.edu> matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Matt Crawford) writes: >a person writes: ['twas me...as stated in the header -- JM] >) The fewer newsgroups there are, the harder it is to find the right >) group to post in. >I don't want to advance the proposition that the author of the above >statement is a pinheaded idiot, but the statement itself is obvious >pinheaded idiocy. Just take it to the limit: if there were only one >newsgroup, it would be trivial to select the right one for each article. I won't respond to Matt's foaming ad hominem except to ask if he's sent Brad Templeton any irrational flames lately. As for my "pinheaded idiocy", I claim an existence proof: we have large numbers of postings that say that the poster couldn't figure out which group to post something to, since there's no foo.bar group. It is obvious to me that if foo.bar were created, that poster would have little trouble finding it. As the number of groups decreases, the number of missing foo.bar groups increases, and so does the user's confusion level. The effect of having a small namespace only takes effect at pathologically small numbers of newsgroups. -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can jay@splut.conmicro.com (eieio)| adequately be explained by stupidity. {attctc,bellcore}!texbell!splut!jay +---------------------------------------- America works less when you say..."Union Yes!"
woods@ncar.ucar.edu (Greg Woods) (10/05/89)
In article <2915@splut.conmicro.com> jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) writes: >the poster couldn't figure out which >group to post something to, since there's no foo.bar group. It is >obvious to me that if foo.bar were created, that poster would have >little trouble finding it. Yes, ASSUMING that foo.bar is in the "logical" place in the namespace. Most flame wars over group creations, with very few exceptions, have centered around this aspect of it, rather than against the idea of the group itself. >As the number of groups decreases, the number >of missing foo.bar groups increases, and so does the user's confusion >level. What you have done here is convincingly argue that there is such a thing as too few newsgroups. I agree. However, this does NOT prove that there ISN'T such a thing as too MANY newsgroups. The "there is no foo.bar group" could just as likely result from the fact that the group is named baz.foo.bar instead, and the user couldn't find it. The likelihood of this happening increases with the number of newsgroups, and in particular it will be worse if the organization of the namespace is worse. So, looking at BOTH Jay's and my arguments, I would conclude: 1) Groups which are really needed SHOULD be created. This means an absolute limit on the number of newsgroups is not a good idea. 2) There should be SOME kind of limit on how many newsgroups we have. This means that there should be some kind of determination that a group IS in fact needed before it is created. It also means that it would be a good idea to have some way of getting rid of groups that are no longer needed. 3) We can handle a lot more newsgroups if they are placed in the namespace properly. This means naming issues ARE important and SHOULD be considered when creating a new group. This implies that there should be some way of preventing the creation of misnamed groups, or forcing a name change to something more reasonable. --Greg
" Maynard) (10/06/89)
In article <4578@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@handies.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes: > Yes, ASSUMING that foo.bar is in the "logical" place in the namespace. >Most flame wars over group creations, with very few exceptions, have centered >around this aspect of it, rather than against the idea of the group itself. More specifically, most flame wars over group creations have centered around which high-level name should apply. Let's take the current discussion as a case in point: the discussion isn't over whether or not "aquaria" is appropriate, but whether or not "sci" is appropriate. It's a lot easier for someone to find "aquaria". The high-level name is becoming more and more a distribution classification as well as a subject classification. > What you have done here is convincingly argue that there is such a thing >as too few newsgroups. I agree. However, this does NOT prove that there >ISN'T such a thing as too MANY newsgroups. I think that there is indeed such a point. We obvoiusly differ on where that point is: it's a question of the shape of the utility vs. groups-to-articles-ratio curve I described last posting. >The "there is no foo.bar group" >could just as likely result from the fact that the group is named baz.foo.bar >instead, and the user couldn't find it. The likelihood of this happening >increases with the number of newsgroups, and in particular it will be worse >if the organization of the namespace is worse. I agree here. This problem should be amenable to software solution (or at least assistance), though: as has been suggested before, a program to do an intelligent 'grep foobar /usr/lib/news/newsgroups' would help this problem a great deal. >So, looking at BOTH Jay's and my arguments, I would conclude: >1) Groups which are really needed SHOULD be created. This means an absolute > limit on the number of newsgroups is not a good idea. Absolutely. >2) There should be SOME kind of limit on how many newsgroups we have. This > means that there should be some kind of determination that a group IS in > fact needed before it is created. It also means that it would be a good > idea to have some way of getting rid of groups that are no longer needed. Again, I agree, though I have serious doubts about the practicality of the decision process. The voting procedure we have attempts to answer this question, with varying degrees of success. I would argue that, in case of an ambivalent result, that the group should be created, since it's more likely to solve the missing group problem, but this assumes the presence of a reliable way to remove newsgroups - which we don't have. >3) We can handle a lot more newsgroups if they are placed in the namespace > properly. This means naming issues ARE important and SHOULD be considered > when creating a new group. This implies that there should be some way > of preventing the creation of misnamed groups, or forcing a name change > to something more reasonable. I would prefer a means of changing the name during the proposal process to simply preventing the creation of misnamed groups. To take my favorite case of sour grapes, I think we'd be much better off with soc.women.computing than no group at all, but that either of those are preferable in the context of this discussion to comp.society.women. It would be a lot easier to find, and would fit much better into the context of the net. -- Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can jay@splut.conmicro.com (eieio)| adequately be explained by stupidity. {attctc,bellcore}!texbell!splut!jay +---------------------------------------- America works less when you say..."Union Yes!"
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (10/06/89)
In article <2920@splut.conmicro.com> jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard) writes: >The high-level name is becoming more and more a distribution >classification as well as a subject classification. Congratulations, Jay, you have hit the nail right on the head. We were trying to disassociate the two concepts, and in fact the reverse has happened. "comp" and "sci" are viewed not as technical hierarchies, but as high-distribution hierarchies. It is time for another great renaming, but one quite different from the first. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473