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
nevin1@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Liber) (08/17/88)
In the spirit of my last article, let me propose a variation of Brad Templeton's proposal: Proposal: There should be a followup group called 'mail', which the news software would automatically mail the followup instead of posting it. Pros: For all those people who request things by mail, there would be a lot less posted followups. Cons: Automatically generated mail paths are not very reliable. How some people go around it: save the message, and post a followup to a parent article or just post a message to the group. Possible implementation: Path of parent is kept in a header line while the article/letter is being edited (this allows it to be stripped down or changed, if necessary). Just before posting, if the newsgroup is "mail", then the article is mailed. What kinds of new traffic will be generated as a result of this change: None that I can think of (yet). Why put it in at all: To get more people to mail replys instead of posting them. Will the proposal meet the goal: I think it will help. Sorry I rambled on for so long. It's just that I hate to see well-intentioned ideas cause more harm than good because of lack of research. -- _ __ 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