dig@peritek.UUCP (Dave Gotwisner) (03/18/89)
In article <1989Mar15.211043.25647@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu>, sarathy@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Rajiv Sarathy) writes: > People have posted their thoughts on the matter of splitting this newsgroup > into subgroups. (For instance, I suggested auto, audio, house, comp, and misc). > Others prefer to use Kill files. Many news readers do not support Kill files. I use VNEWS (and like it, except for what I say below), and, as far as I know it doesn't. Also, since several news readers don't support kill files, NEWS should be architected to support the weakest link (just like most businesses that I am familiar with do), namely, modifying/adding-features-to software (or hardware) should not break whatever already uses it. Given the volume on the net, I consider VNEWS broken, as it could take a day or more to read (or skip through) all articles which are in newsgroups that frequently have things of interest to me (I am crossposting this to news.misc because this is actually a general comment, not just a misc.forsale question). It is broken only because the level of news articles has surpassed VNEWS' usefulness. Even with kill files, this may be true, given Rajiv's comments below. I know, you may say that I should go to another newsreader. I say that the news hierarchy should be fixed to work with the multitude of news readers out there, or someone (with some authority) posting something saying: VNEWS (or other reader) is obsolete. All users of this should get <INSERT-READER-HERE> and use it. Patches to obsolete readers will no longer be posted. The following list are supported readers: reader-A, reader-B, .... or some such thing. And provide access to this other reader for all users of the net (for example, I don't have FTP access, so providing an FTP address does not make it available to me). Until this comes about I will continue to use VNEWS. > There are a number of concerns I wish to address: > > Often, the broad subject doesn't appear anywhere in the article, > much less the Subject line. For instance, someone advertised a > '87 Honda CRX. Neither the subject nor the body of the article > had the word "car" or the word "auto" in it. And, no matter how good we are at enforcing a rule to put something on the subject line (or keywords line), someone will always find away to get around it. Again, by increasing the newsgroups, this should reduce the problems. Using your suggestion of newsgroups including: misc.forsale.auto, misc.forsale.audio, misc.forsale.house, misc.forsale.comp, and misc.forsale.misc, housing items will not appear in comp, although they may appear in misc (although not so many). People who are not interested in houses will have significantly fewer articles to skip over, since they could avoid misc.foresale.house in it's entirety. > (And why was this article [the forsale item -- Dave] > posted throughout the WORLD, when only people in the > surrounding states would be interested, hmmm?) I have no problem with items being posted to world. If I was changing jobs and going to NJ (for example), it is useful to see things from there (when I move, I might sell my car prior to moving, thereby needing a new one in New Jersey, and I would definately be interested in house postings then). Also, although there are regions (ba is SF Bay area for example), I might be right at the edge of that area and another area (and not get regional postings from that other area). If this is the case, I would like to see things from that area as well (Sacramento is not part of the Bay Area, and to purchase things, I might consider going to Sacto, if the price were right). Likewise, if I was in NYC, postings to NJ might be of interest to me for the same reasons. > But people will say, yes, but you might want to buy something you > weren't in the market for. True, but I don't want to look through > a dozen ads for cars, when I KNOW I'm not going to buy a car. True. I may not be looking for a car, but having all cars in the same newsgroup, and having this newsgroup separate from, say houses would allow me to look at them if I have the fancy (and time). Again, some news readers do not provide kill capabilities, and skipping articles and coming back to them later with VNEWS is a pain (do-able, but a pain) and my fingers get tired from typing a lot of "n" keys. Dave -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dave Gotwisner UUCP: ...!unisoft!peritek!dig Peritek Corporation ...!vsi1!peritek!dig 5550 Redwood Road Oakland, CA 94619 Phone: 1-415-531-6500
bob@tinman.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) (03/22/89)
In article <567@peritek.UUCP> dig@peritek.UUCP (Dave Gotwisner) writes
that he will continue to use vnews, though he agrees that it is
"broken" and no longer useful to him because of the volume of news
in the groups he reads.
...I know, you may say that I should go to another newsreader. I
say that the news hierarchy should be fixed to work with the
multitude of news readers out there,
There now exist a wide variety of newsreaders that support KILL files
and other volume-management devices. All are more modern (or at least
more recent) than readnews, vnews, and vn.
...or someone (with some authority) posting something saying:
Whose authority would you accept? "Backbone Cabals" are
old-fashioned, too :-)
VNEWS (or other reader) is obsolete. All users of this
should get <INSERT-READER-HERE> and use it. Patches to
obsolete readers will no longer be posted. The following
list are supported readers:
reader-A, reader-B, ....
If you can't decide for yourself to move to something that will make
your onerous news-reading task easier, then you might as well go ahead
using whatever software you like. But please don't complain that it's
the net's fault! Time marches on! People adapt, often by writing and
using better software. You have been provided with more sophisticated
news volume-management tools if you would like to use them.
And provide access to this other reader for all users of the net
(for example, I don't have FTP access, so providing an FTP address
does not make it available to me).
You can get rn, gnews, and gnus from osu-cis via anonymous UUCP.
Please write for directions if you're interested, or see article
<KARL.89Feb20141931@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu> in comp.sources.d.
Until this comes about I will continue to use VNEWS.
You're welcome to do so. You're also welcome to make it easier on
yourself if you'd like. But please don't ask that the net undertake
inconvenient changes in order to accomodate you because you prefer to
use a newsreader that you admit is broken for your purposes. There's
nothing wrong with the heirarchy that better tools won't fix.frost@sdsu.UUCP (Richard Frost) (03/23/89)
In article <1989Mar15.211043.25647@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu>, sarathy@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Rajiv Sarathy) writes: > People have posted their thoughts on the matter of splitting this newsgroup > into subgroups. (For instance, I suggested auto, audio, house, comp, and misc). > ... >Again, by increasing the newsgroups, this should reduce the problems. Using >your suggestion of newsgroups including: > > misc.forsale.auto, > misc.forsale.audio, > misc.forsale.house, > misc.forsale.comp, and > misc.forsale.misc, > >housing items will not appear in comp, although they may appear in misc >(although not so many). People who are not interested in houses will have >significantly fewer articles to skip over, since they could avoid >misc.foresale.house in it's entirety. > ... > But people will say, yes, but you might want to buy something you > weren't in the market for. True, but I don't want to look through > a dozen ads for cars, when I KNOW I'm not going to buy a car. > Here, here !! Break up this newsgroup into useable groups. For those who have the time to browse ALL the groups, let them subscribe to them all! As for names, how about: forsale.auto forsale.audio forsale.comp forsale.elec << if you think there's been enough forsale.house forsale.misc Richard Frost E-mail: sdsu!frost@ucsd.edu - a scientist is someone who learns more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing! (Ziman)
mangler@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Don Speck) (03/26/89)
In article <1989Mar15.211043.25647@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu>, sarathy@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Rajiv Sarathy) writes: > People have posted their thoughts on the matter of splitting this newsgroup > into subgroups. (For instance, I suggested auto, audio, house, comp, and misc). misc.forsale.comp was proposed a year ago. Response in the month-long comments period was voluminous. The vote failed (approximately 50 Yes to 13 No) due to complete lack of electioneering on my part, and I never got around to posting the results. Many people objected that the traffic didn't warrant a split. A few suggested a combined wanted/forsale group patterned after ba.market. Three people suggested reminding people to use Distribution: headers. Nigel Horne (in the U.K.) suggested usa.forsale.computers. rsalz@pineapple.bbn.com said: > Yeah, I guess so; let's just hope it doesn't get cluttered with > "buy my c64" or ads from 3rd party folks. George Robbins said (last year!): > I floated this suggestion a year ago, and got nary a peep.