mesard@bbn.com (Wayne Mesard) (01/17/90)
davidbe@sco.COM (The Cat in the Hat) writes: >A history group could go in any number of groups; I wouldn't >complain if it were in sci. Misc seems like the best place for it, >offhand. The main source of controversy in several recent group creation discussions is that there is no consensus about what belongs in sci. I recommend that that top level group be remained in an attempt to establish such a consensus. Here's my proposal: Change sci.* to univ.*. This hierarchy will be for the discussion of academic subjects at a university level. It will NOT be for the discussion of universities, university life or university anything. It WILL be for the discussion of anything university. -- void Wayne_Mesard(); Mesard@BBN.COM Bolt Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, MA
peterson@fsucs.cs.fsu.edu (Eric J Peterson) (01/17/90)
In article <50970@bbn.COM>, mesard@labs-n.bbn.com (Wayne Mesard) writes: | | The main source of controversy in several recent group creation | discussions is that there is no consensus about what belongs in sci. I | recommend that that top level group be remained in an attempt to | establish such a consensus. Here's my proposal: | | Change sci.* to univ.*. | | This hierarchy will be for the discussion of academic subjects at a | university level. It will NOT be for the discussion of universities, | university life or university anything. It WILL be for the discussion | of anything university. Forgive me, but to quote Michael Palin in Monty Python's "Argument Clinic" sketch, "What a stupid concept." I assume that Wayne refers to the recent debates over the naming of *.aquaria, *.history, *.philosophy.objectivism, etc. as motivation for this suggestion. But this only poses some of the following questions: (1) Why limit the context of the sci.* groups to university level discussions? There are plenty of message threads that are both above and below university level. Who would decide what level a particular posting or thread was on? (2) Why change the actual name? Why not just alter the purpose of sci.*? (3) Why change it to "univ.*"? As Wayne makes clear himself, you would have to explicitly tell people that univ.* relates to universities in a manner that most people would not think of right away. Why not just change it to "acad.*", as Wayne's article unwittingly hints at, if you change it at all? This would be much more clearer, and would make more logically cover groups such as sci.lang.*, sci.math.*, sci.econ, etc. (4) Why worry about whether it should be sci.* or univ.* or acad.* or whatever.*? As long as it groups the academic topics together into the same heirarchy, the name is completely arbitrary. If we rename sci.* to univ.*, why not rename misc.* to etc.*? Or soc.* to life.*? Or talk.* to discuss.*? ** VERY IMPORTANT NOTE ** This is not to say that I believe that the entire name of the group is arbitrary, as the rec.arts.cinema discussions here have shown. But that group could just as easily have been named ent.arts.cinema, rec.media.cinema, or something similar, and as long as it was still grouped with the other ent.* or rec.media.* groups I should have no problem discerning what the discussion is generally about from the name of the group. I think people should stop worrying about the group name so much and get on with the content. Eric -- Eric Peterson <> peterson@nu.cs.fsu.edu <> uunet!nu.cs.fsu.edu!peterson Florida State Univ CS Dept Technician, Room 011 Love Bldg, Phone 904/644-2296 echo "This is not a pipe." | lpr -P laserjet2
chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (01/17/90)
peterson@fsucs.cs.fsu.edu (Eric J Peterson) writes: >| Change sci.* to univ.*. >Forgive me, but to quote Michael Palin in Monty Python's "Argument Clinic" >sketch, "What a stupid concept." Yeah. Besides the fact that "univ" is an amazingly ambiguous name (a top level name really *has* to be self-documenting to be effective. or we'll spend all our time explaning what 'univ' means. I can think of two or three possible definitions for the term, but I think most folks would just be confused. If we're going to do something to sci, simply renaming it won't work. You'll just end up with a new, confused, screwed up top-level domain. My thought has been to just delete the domain completely, creating instead two second level domains in misc, misc.sci and misc.tech. I was the person who first pushed for the creation of sci, and in retrospect I think it was a mistake. I don't think, based on the groups that are in it, that it was either well-thought out or deserving of a top-level domain. We'd be much better off with a "micro.*" top-level domain to split the personal computer material out from comp than we are with "sci.*" > (1) Why limit the context of the sci.* groups to university level > discussions? There are plenty of message threads that are both above > and below university level. Who would decide what level a particular > posting or thread was on? We have enough trouble keeping technical content in sci.all. Adding the EXTRA requirement of a specific level of competency to the content simply raises the number of inappropriate postings. It won't raise the quality of the postings one whit. > (2) Why change the actual name? Why not just alter the purpose of sci.*? Because some folks believe that by changing the name, you can magically change the content. This is arguably not true, but people like to believe it anyway... > discussions here have shown. But that group could just as easily > have been named ent.arts.cinema, rec.media.cinema, or something The name is a placeholder. it should be designed to help people find the appropriate topic easily and unambiguously. That's the whole purpose of all the namespace wars. Some folks have decided that names are not just placeholders, but are also filters -- a specific name will keep inappropriate postings out of a group by some sort of magic. This isn't true. Moderators keep inappropriate postings out of a group. Names just make the group easier or harder to find. -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> chuq@apple.com <+> [This is myself speaking] Oh, saith you that this should be some pithy saying, but frankly, I can't think of anything to say. -- William Shakespeare
dveditz@dbase.A-T.COM (Dan Veditz) (01/19/90)
Chuq Von Rospach (chuq@Apple.COM) writes: > My thought has been to just delete the [sci] domain completely, > creating instead two second level domains in misc, misc.sci and > misc.tech. I was the person who first pushed for the creation of > sci, and in retrospect I think it was a mistake. I'd support this enthusiastically. 'misc' would also be a good place for other academic subjects if the need arises (misc.history.all, misc.lit.all, etc.). -Dan | uunet!ashtate!dveditz Vote NO on moderated 'talk' groups. | dveditz@ashtate.A-T.com