randall@Virginia.EDU (Ran Atkinson) (11/26/90)
As the person who organised and ran the changes last summer which created the entire comp.os.msdos.* and comp.os.os2.* heirarchies and generally reorganised that segment of namespace, I find the proposal to create comp.os.msdos.desqview to be not well formed. The best reason to create a newsgroup is because there is evidence of existing traffic which would warrant a separate newsgroup. Having a lot of very low traffic groups is unproductive because net.readers will mispost articles if the "appropriate" group seems unused or underused because they want lots of folks to read what they post. The other good reason to create a group is because there is no clearly appropriate existing forum for such discussion. This proposal clearly fails both criteria. Desqview programmer questions periodically arise and are addressed in the existing group comp.os.msdos.programmer and general Desqview questions periodically arise and are addressed in the existing group comp.os.msdos.programmer. There is not sufficient traffic to warrant a newgroup (as admitted by the proposer in the Call for Discussion no less). Also, there would be a tendency to crosspost items between the existing groups in comp.os.msdos.* and the new group which would be counter productive. Creating groups in the hope of increasing discussion has been established to be unproductive (evidence comp.std.internat). Also, I have questions about the proposed name. The MS-Windows environment is comparable to Desqview in function and in relation to MS-DOS and yet lives in its own area (comp.windows.ms.*) rather than in the regular MS-DOS space. If a newgroup were to be created (I don't see any justification just now), it probably should be in comp.os.desqview or comp.windows.desqview or some other namespace than the regular MS-DOS area. This different namespace idea has been demonstrated to work well in reducing inappropriate cross-postings. All things considered, the Desqview proposal is one that isn't a good idea at the moment. It should be tabled for 6 months and then if traffic has picked up and there is clear need it should be proposed and discussed further then. Ran Atkinson randall@Virginia.EDU
sichermn@beach.csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman) (11/27/90)
In article <1990Nov26.145552.586@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> Ran Atkinson <randall@Virginia.EDU> writes: >As the person who organised and ran the changes last summer >which created the entire comp.os.msdos.* and comp.os.os2.* >heirarchies and generally reorganised that segment of namespace, >I find the proposal to create comp.os.msdos.desqview to be >not well formed. I'm not sure what 'well formed' is or means, unless it's just a description of the following points. However, I have found the forest represented by the named hierarchies to make it difficult to find the proper tree to post an inquiry. This is not a criticism of the creator, just a comment that generality is not necessarily to be preferred over specificity, regardless of traffic. If I know what I want and what I'm talking about, by chances of getting good, expert information are better in a targetted group with (supposedly) well-informed and interested readers, rather than one which many people frequent and which the specialists must plow through tons of things relatively uninteresting to them. >The best reason to create a newsgroup is because there is evidence >of existing traffic which would warrant a separate newsgroup. >Having a lot of very low traffic groups is unproductive because >This proposal clearly fails both criteria. Desqview programmer questions >periodically arise and are addressed in the existing group >comp.os.msdos.programmer and general Desqview questions periodically arise >and are addressed in the existing group comp.os.msdos.programmer. >There is not sufficient traffic to warrant a newgroup (as admitted by >the proposer in the Call for Discussion no less). Also, there would >be a tendency to crosspost items between the existing groups in comp.os.msdos.* I think you have chosen to forget or ignore the commnet in the original proposal that the fidonet group, which is quite active, could be gated. We might also be lucky enough for Quarterdeck to listen in and save all of us some phone costs of reaching their BBS. This could increase the volume significantly and I don't think there is any way to measure this potential by current postings because the information isnt really available here yet. ... deleted ... > >Also, I have questions about the proposed name. The MS-Windows environment >is comparable to Desqview in function and in relation to MS-DOS and yet >lives in its own area (comp.windows.ms.*) rather than in the regular >MS-DOS space. If a newgroup were to be created (I don't see any >justification just now), it probably should be in comp.os.desqview or >comp.windows.desqview or some other namespace than the regular MS-DOS >area. This different namespace idea has been demonstrated to work >well in reducing inappropriate cross-postings. Well, I think this is minor but I yield to your expertise here and I'm for anything that shortens names to be typed. I have a minor concern of my own in that the name excludes qemm, qram, etc but then windows does the same to himem, smartdrv, etc with out noticeable harm to questions about them. And desqview is clear, well-known, and unambiguous. > >All things considered, the Desqview proposal is one that isn't a good idea >at the moment. It should be tabled for 6 months and then if traffic >has picked up and there is clear need it should be proposed and discussed >further then. > All things considered, I obviously disagree. Now personally I would like to see a group for other multitaskers (PCMOS, VM386 ...) but I havent seen *any* discussion on them, so lets table that for 6 months. I dont think (unless I misunderstand your point) that you table discussion, just the vote at most. Jeff Sicherman sichermn@beach.csulb.edu
emcguire@ccad.uiowa.edu (Ed McGuire) (11/27/90)
In article <1990Nov26.145552.586@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> Ran Atkinson <randall@Virginia.EDU> writes: the Desqview proposal is one that isn't a good idea at the moment. It should be tabled for 6 months In article <1990Nov26.192502.1820@beach.csulb.edu> sichermn@beach.csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman) writes: I dont think [...] that you table discussion, just the vote at most. There's nothing wrong with shelving a new group proposal without a vote. Lots of new group proposals have been shelved. Two popular reasons: obvious lack of interest and unanimous opposition. You seem to be claiming that there's some convention for tabling a discussion/vote. Well, there are two conventions that come to mind, and neither of them are tabling. Discussion of a new group proposal is taken offline (not tabled) if the proponents--the people in favor of it--disagree about the proposed name and charter: this is in the guidelines for new group creation. A new group proposal is deprecated (not tabled) if it was voted down less than six months earlier: this is not written down anywhere that I know of. Neither of these conventions preclude shelving a discussion by consensus for any reason. Let's avoid slavish worship of net.rules and discuss only the issues. Followups directed away from messy DOS to news.groups. -- peace. -- Ed Nothing important to do? Let's bash.