root@conexch.UUCP (Larry Dighera) (08/08/88)
In article <401@mace.cc.purdue.edu> rsk@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Rich Kulawiec) writes: [Much useful information deleted to focus on the real problem] >the percentage of useful postings is way down. > >6. Unmoderated groups suffer from several problems; here are a few. > >1. Inappropriately posted articles (including excessive cross-posting) >2. Numerous replies to simple questions (which should have been mailed) >3. Excessively-quoting followups (sometimes bypassing 2.11's checks) >4. Public airing of private squabbles (e.g. flames) >5. Test (and similar) articles from novice users >6. Articles with questions that have been asked zillions of times (and > answered) and could be dealt with in a single letter. >7. Signatures longer than articles (sometimes bypassing 2.11's checks) >8. Article skew (see above). [ This is curable with smart news-reading > software, but only if the whole discussion is read after it > completely arrives. ] > >These problems were once not problems at all; they were isolated incidents. >Now they're almost the norm, as a random sampling of nearly any group >quickly reveals...and they're getting worse, despite the best efforts >of some to alleviate them through (a) education and (b) software. > Usenet was originally conceived as a medium for the electronic publication of _articles_ (imagine an electronic newspaper or magazine). Because, this medium possesses the facility for feedback from its readers, discussion and announcement newsgroups also exist. It is my feeling that the difficulties that usenet is experiencing at this time are due to novice usenet users not being _required_ to learn the "rules" of this unique medium before they are being permitted post to it. These novice users fall into two _main_ categories: those who gain access solely by virtue of their being college students, and those who are familiar with BBSs and think that usenet is just an extension of that sort of mentality (which it is not). The average user that represents either of these groups has little desire to compose an article for publication, but would rather just react to what is published, or "test the waters" to see if s/he can stimulate a response to their posting. This is natural if they haven't been enlightened about what usenet is. The news reading programs are inadequate in prompting and prodding usenet posters into conforming with the premise of usenet. This is finally being addressed in current discussions of proposed updates to the news software. Default distributions for each newsgroup, the necessity to manually enter the newsgroups when crosposting a follow-up, questioning the poster whether an e-mail reply wouldn't be more appropriate than a follow-up article, as well as the necessity for more new material than quoted, and .signature conformance are examples of the type of prodding posters need. Personally, I would also like to see a mandatory one month probation period, for observing how usenet functions, enforced before novice users are allowed to post to the net. It would also be prudent to assure that potential usenet posters have indeed read the new-user articles which describe the proper etiquette by requiring them to pass a short electronic-quiz before the posting program becomes functional for them. Usenet is a unique medium. It isn't a Bullition Board. In order to see that it doesn't become one, it is mandatory that posters understand how it is different _before_ they are allowed to post to it, and that they be cajoled and prodded into respecting its etiquette. Many of the problems currently plaguing usenet are a result of the users not being adequately informed of what is expected of them. Larry Dighera -- USPS: The Consultants' Exchange, PO Box 12100, Santa Ana, CA 92712 TELE: (714) 842-6348: BBS (N81); (714) 842-5851: Xenix guest account (E71) UUCP: conexch Any ACU 2400 17148425851 "" "" ogin:-""-ogin:-""-ogin: nuucp UUCP: ...!uunet!turnkey!conexch!root || ...!trwrb!ucla-an!conexch!root
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (08/10/88)
Actually, the problem isn't just the novices who aren't aware that usenet shouldn't be full of such junk. There are lots of experienced users who post it because they like to post it. But the novices are a big part. One solution I liked was the suggestion that there be no "followup" command, merely a reply command, which, after you composed the article, asked if it should be mailed (default) or posted as a followup, with lots of notes on what not to post. I would take this one step further, and use it as the complete tool for most "rules" implemented in the software: 1) reply/followups are always mailed if the original article did not have a "Followup-to:" header. That's right, *no followups unless the original poster explicitly wrote a header for followups to the net*. And in particular, since the original poster has to type the followup list by hand, it will (hopefully) only be ONE group. People would no longer carelessly ignore requests to "reply by mail" and if somebody does ask for followups to the net when it's not appropriate, we have somebody to yell at, rather than all the followers-up! 2) If the article contains too much quoted text, don't reject it, just mail it. If it has that much quoted text it is obviously directed at the person who wrote the quoted text! Get rid of all that "line counter fodder" crap. 3) If the user asks to post the article, then go through the warnings about the size of the audience and appropriate matters for followups, and then confirm. Lessons like: If this is a response to a question, please mail it and ask the asker to summarize to the net. If you *must* post, please wait a day or two to see if anybody else has responded. Only post what you are sure of and have researched, there's nothing worse than being a fool who didn't take time to check facts in front of 10,000 people. If this is a point-by-point rebuttal, please mail it. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
donna@cfa250.harvard.edu (Donna Irwin x57134) (08/16/88)
> It is my feeling that the difficulties that usenet is experiencing at this > time are due to novice usenet users not being _required_ to learn the "rules" > of this unique medium before they are being permitted post to it. I'm a novice user who searched through a number of Usenet directories without finding any rules of net etiquette, or even instructions on how to use the system. Until I read this entry, I didn't know Usenet was anything but a bulletin board. People might try improving the on-line documentation before they flame the novices. Similarly, veterans should be more charitable toward people who post questions and ideas Usenetted before. The vets may have seen the previous postings, but I would guess that at least 20 percent of the Usenet users have been on the system less than six months. The novice users might be intrigued by what the vets find tiresome. Those who are trying to maintain the "electronic journal" quality of Usenet are fighting a losing battle. The nature of a computer network makes flamefests and bs-ing inevitable. The electronic journal folks' only hope is the kind of centralized editorial authority that computer networking was supposed to subvert. Allison Bell, using Donna's terminal
nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Liber) (08/17/88)
[followups to news.misc] In article <1917@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes: >1) reply/followups are always mailed if the original article did not have >a "Followup-to:" header. That's right, *no followups unless the original >poster explicitly wrote a header for followups to the net*. If this were to happen, I would immediately write a shell script that would take a saved message and reformat it so that it looks like an original article. And I have this very strange feeling that many others would do the same. >And in >particular, since the original poster has to type the followup list by >hand, it will (hopefully) only be ONE group. Since I would usually want to make sure that the followup group was the same as the original group for each and every message I decide to post (and assuming I haven't written my automatic shell script, of course), I would just go into vi and yank the section of line that I needed. Do you really believe that most people are going to bother to retype the whole line in again instead of just cutting and pasting, especially after a few spelling errors? I would have those keystrokes memorized as fast as I memorized ':g/^>/s//|' to get circumvent of the silly inews check. > People would no longer >carelessly ignore requests to "reply by mail" and if somebody does ask >for followups to the net when it's not appropriate, we have somebody to >yell at, rather than all the followers-up! But there would be a whole bunch more people posting messages to the effect "Why can't I get my followup to work?" Also, what do you do when the mail path doesn't work (and we all know that the reply path is usually too long and very unreliable)? >2) If the article contains too much quoted text, don't reject it, just >mail it. If it has that much quoted text it is obviously directed at >the person who wrote the quoted text! Get rid of all that "line counter >fodder" crap. Please, let's learn from the mistake of putting that check in in the first place. What did that check do? It stopped net.first-timers from posting followups; that's about it. There was no research done on the negative effects of putting this check in. If you don't mind an analogy (paraphrased from Professor Ralph Barnett; I'm sorry if I got it slightly wrong, it's been a long time since I heard the story): What happened when they originally put ramps in the sidewalks of major cities for wheelchairs? Well, trucks didn't feel their tires hitting the curb so they would drive up on the sidewalk. Blind people couldn't find the curb so they would walk out in the middle of traffic. Kids on bicycles, since they didn't have to stop, would ride into moving cars. Was it a well-intentioned idea (helping people in wheelchairs)? Yes. Was it well-implemented? No; it caused more problems than it solved. Why wasn't it well-implemented? Because no one bothered to research the negative effects of implementing it, or even consider what else might be impacted when this was implemented. >3) If the user asks to post the article, then go through the warnings >about the size of the audience and appropriate matters for followups, and >then confirm. Lessons like: > If this is a response to a question, please mail it and > ask the asker to summarize to the net. If you *must* post, > please wait a day or two to see if anybody else has responded. > Only post what you are sure of and have researched, there's nothing > worse than being a fool who didn't take time to check facts in front > of 10,000 people. If this is a point-by-point rebuttal, please > mail it. I hate to tell you this, but no one bothers to read those messages, especially after the first couple of times they post something. Quick, can you tell me what your /etc/motd said when you logged on? Most people can't. I am ready to hit 'y' well before the "this will cost the net billions" message appears on my terminal. One more message won't change anything (except to those people who have to read the net at 1200 baud). How many people have aliased rm="rm -i" and still managed to delete all the wrong files? People get conditioned into making a response; when that happens, there is almost no reason to bother to ask for confirmation. Please don't take this posting as a flame; that is not what I meant it to be. If there are any serious proposals to change the news software being made, then we need to consider them much more than the inews line counter was considered. We need to look at the negative effects of putting them in, not just the intention behind it. We also need to look at how people are going to try to get around it and see if it is worth the trouble of putting it in, and make sure that it doesn't generate more traffic than it is trying to stop. -- _ __ NEVIN J. LIBER ..!att!ihlpb!nevin1 (312) 979-???? IH 4F-410 ' ) ) There is something embarrassing about working at / / _ , __o ____ AT&T and not being able to get a *PHONE*! :-) / (_</_\/ <__/ / <_ These are solely MY opinions, not AT&T's, blah blah blah
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (08/18/88)
In article <8544@ihlpb.ATT.COM> nevin1@ihlpb.UUCP (55528-Liber,N.J.) writes: >>1) reply/followups are always mailed if the original article did not have >>a "Followup-to:" header... > >If this were to happen, I would immediately write a shell script that >would take a saved message and reformat it so that it looks like an >original article. And I have this very strange feeling that many >others would do the same. This is exactly why it is pointless to try to legislate morality in ways that inconvenience people who know what they're doing and don't want any backtalk from the software: ways around the problem are quickly found and just as quickly automated. The result is extra complexity and hassle in the software to no useful purpose. If people want to improve the net by putting restrictions in the software, the restrictions *have* to be very carefully chosen and implemented so that they do not inconvenience the experienced users. Restrictions to keep novices under better control while not inconveniencing the experts are tricky, but not impossible. Restrictions deliberately aimed at inconveniencing the experts are silly and pointless -- they won't work. -- Intel CPUs are not defective, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology they just act that way. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (08/19/88)
Yes, people in the know will get around any software restriction. That doesn't make the restrictions bad, necessarily. My idea that you can't followup an article unless it has a "Followup-to:" line on it is not so much a restriction as a changing of default actions. If you change defaults to encourage better behaviour, people will still make annoying postings, but it will never get done due to ignorance or mistake. And if the net adopts a custom that you don't follow up an article unless the poster explicitly requested it, you're not being very polite if you sneak around it. And the fact that a rule is implemented in software (and thus easy to break) doesn't make it any less of a rule. If restrictions in software tell you there is something about your article which will not be wanted on the net, you are still being told something, even if you know how to get around the restriction. But people seem to ignore it anyway. And if you had to explicitly type a Followup-To: line, it would almost completely eliminate the endless discussions that go on and on, still crossposted to groups where the readers are more annoyed than interested. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (08/19/88)
Also, extra complexity in posting software is NEVER to no useful purpose. An article is posted once, but read (or briefly scanned) 10,000 times. The posting probably takes 10 to 15 minutes (or less) while the reading takes a combined 15 to 16 hours. Anything that makes posting harder is good. Anything that makes reading (or elimination) easier is good. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473