matoh@sssab.se (Mats Ohrman) (11/22/89)
[ This is my fourth try to post this. I hope it makes it out into the world this time..] I don't think it is the voting rules that are hopelessly broken and needs fixing with all these elaborate new ways of voting. I think that a lot of controversy can be removed with just a few fixes [ :-) ] of the newsreaders. In some ways my proposal is similar to Barry Schein's newsgroupcap, that has already been discussed here. I like it, and I want to see more of it, but I think it is somewhat of an overkill... First, some net.voices: (Yes, I know all of you have read all of this before, but I want to point out the context I'm writing this in. Please, be patient...) ____________________________________________________________________________ dwj@acd4.UUCP (Dan Johnson): > >sloane@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu: >> >>pearsonm@agnes.uucp (Matthew E Pearson): >>> >>> Would anyone be interested in a rec.games.roleplaying newsgroup? >>> Anyone interested in discussing it? >> >>Sounds like a good idea. How about calling it rec.games.frp for fantasy role >>playing? Wait a minute that sounds familiar. Yes, I just checked and this >>group already exists, at least it does here. Discussions of everything from >>ADND to GURPS to Villians and Vigilantes. Check it out. > >Maybe we should consider *changing* the name of rec.games.frp to >rec.games.role-playing or rec.games.rpg. ______________________________________________________________________________ bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein): >Apparently Chip hasn't looked at his active file or .newsrc in a few >years, I have 976 groups listed. I fear the horse has long since left >the barn. > >If you think you're solving the problem of discovering the appropriate >group by trying to keep it down to around 1000 I think you're deluded. > >Do you buy the smallest theasurus or dictionary you can find on the >assumption that it will be easier to find words in it? > >An entirely different mechanism is needed to help people find what >they're looking for, the days of a manageable list of groups has long >since past and adding another coupla hundred this year (or not) won't >make one whit of difference to the problem you describe. ______________________________________________________________________________ edhew@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew): > >rang@cs.wisc.edu (Anton Rang): >> >> The problem is that (most? some? just me?) people don't look for a >>group to discuss a topic by going through the list of group names, >>looking them up in a dictionary, and deciding whether they're >>appropriate. It's much more efficient to think of some keywords or >>synonyms and look at the list for groups whose names pop out at you. >>IMHO, at least. > >I'd suggest that when in doubt as to where to post, any site which >gets news.* has this information available. Spaf submits a very >useful article summarizing all the reasons_for_existance of every >mainstream USENET newsgroup in an article titled, of all things.... >"List of Active Newsgroups", normally posted to news.lists, news.groups, >and news.announce.newusers ______________________________________________________________________________ jay@splut.conmicro.com (Jay "you ignorant splut!" Maynard): > >A namespace is either clear, consistent, and commonly understood or >unusable. Mistakes like sci.aquaria, comp.[society.]women, sci.skeptic, >and misc.headlines.unitex move the namespace toward the unusable side. ______________________________________________________________________________ peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva): > >For the THOUSANDTH time, I'm sure. All together now: > >"They didn't vote for "sci.aquaria", they voted for ".aquaria"" > >Not to mention the fact that the people who care about the namespace >are by and large the people who are making the system work... ______________________________________________________________________________ dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright): [...] >Interesting either way; it implies that the net is driven not by the >'dictatorship of the majority' but by consensus arrived at by ballots with >a clear majority -- arguably getting almost full agreement to what you >want (which is what most successful new group proposals in effect do) is >far *more* democratic than pushing your proposal through against strong >dissent, getting it passed by (in this case) a fairly small majority, and >then expecting everyone else to fall into line with it. ______________________________________________________________________________ Ok, when you are done digesting this, let's get down to business: *The problem is that the *name of the group* contains to much information!* It is used to find the storage place on disc indicate international, national, regional distribution [ ca.*, nj.*, eunet.*, swnet.*, etc...] select what to download as a site select what to read as an user indicate what subjects to *post* as an user etc..., etc... And when you cram that much information into a single name of < 20-25 letters, every letter becomes so overloaded that it is prone to discharge into a flame war at a moments notice. ("*.aquaria" vs "*.aquarium" vs "*aquarius", or "comp.object"...). Just now, a vote for a name isn't a vote just for the name, it is a vote for the name, the distribution, the contents (debatable:) the quality and the readership of the group. And *every* *single* <beep> *letter* could drastically change any of those. No wonder we get flame wars. So, let's look at Spaf's "List of Active Newsgroups" Newsgroup Description ---------------------------------------------------------------------- comp.ai Artificial intelligence discussions. comp.ai.digest Artificial Intelligence discussions. (Moderated) comp.ai.neural-nets All aspects of neural networks. comp.ai.nlang-know-rep Natural Language and Knowledge Representation. (Moderated) comp.ai.shells Artificial intelligence applied to shells. (Moderated) comp.arch Computer architecture. comp.archives Descriptions of public access archives. (Moderated) comp.binaries.amiga Encoded public domain programs in binary. (Moderated) comp.binaries.apple2 Binary-only postings for the Apple II computer. comp.binaries.atari.st Binary-only postings for the Atari ST. (Moderated) comp.binaries.ibm.pc Binary-only postings for IBM PC/MS-DOS. (Moderated) comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d Discussions about IBM/PC binary postings. [etc..] and for simplicity's sake call these two columns "name" and "title". Suppose for a minute that it was the *name* that was used for distribution and administration purposes and *both* name *and title* for presentation in the newsreader. If "rn" instead of saying: ******** 12 unread articles in news.config--read now? [ynq] n ******** 98 unread articles in news.groups--read now? [ynq] said: news.config: Postings of system down times and interruptions. 12 unread in this group. Read now? [ynq] n news.groups: Discussions and lists of newsgroups. 98 unread in this group. Read now? [ynq] and "nn" showed title instead of name at the top of its read selection screen? What would happen then? Well, I think that: * We could have Newgroup proposals and *user* votes for the *title*, not the name, as that would be what concerned the users. I.e. a vote for the *charter* of the group, not the *distribution*. Image if the vote for "sci.aquaria" (the name) instead had been for: "Research in recreating marine environments. Not for hobbyists." (the title) which seemed to be the charter pushed by Richard. Right now the question whether the name "sci.aquaria" was chosen *for better quality * or *to grab for better distribution* depends on what side of the flame war you belong to. "Research in..." could only be the first, as it would not have anything to do with the latter. * Sysadmins could rely on a "trusted few" [the Newgroup Czars] to give groups appropriate distributions, just as they now trust them to issue the proper "newgroup". The "name wars" would be resolved the same way the "rmgroup wars" were. The title, content and "quality" would be separated from the distribution and propagation... * Remember the first quote above? About "rec.games.frp"? With a more descriptive title we would see less: "Where's this group?" "I don't know if this is the correct newsgroup to post this, but..." ...not to mention the flames about "this isn't the appropriate newsgroup" - "It is" - "It Isn't" ...or non-source postings in source groups (alt.source - alt.source.code) etc. Don't you think it would be a good idea for the users to see the charter of the group *all the time*, not just a cryptic name? I don't think there are many "ordinary" [:-)] users that read news.lists... (or news.group, or news.announce.newgroups... news.announce.newusers is probably one of the first groups they use "unsubscribe" on :-( ) Yes, I know; a lot of sites won't upgrade their software. It is not an excuse to not simplify for the users at those sites that do. (And improve the output from those sites....) And if we could cut down on the flamage in "news.group" it certainly would be A Good Thing. [ :-) ] So, perhaps an upgrade of 'rn' and 'nn', together with an automatic mechanism to archive the Newsgroup List would be a better idea than The Great Renaming II. It would certainly reduce the (unavoidable?) flame war if and when the Renaming occurs. 17> soapbox -off 18> asbestos_suit -on ______________________________________________________________________________ Disclaimer [n]: A cute little joke at the end of an article. ______________________________________________________________________________ _ : matoh@sssab.se / Mats Ohrman, : {mcvax,munnari,uunet}!sunic!sssab!matoh Scandinavian System Support AB, : Phone: Nat. 013-11 16 60 Box 535, S-581 06 Linkoping, Sweden : Int. +46 13 11 16 60 ______________________________________________________________________________