peltz@cerl.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz) (11/16/89)
But wait, I don't understand! If someone aliases (just for the sheer sake of argument, not that it was actually done here at the U of I, for instance) sci.aquaria to rec.pet.fish, and all these articles start showing up in rec.pet.fish with a Newsgroups: line indicating sci.aquaria, what has that accomplished? Isn't it only going to confuse the people on THAT system, but continue to feed sci.aquaria on down the line? What happens if I post something to rec.pet.fish? Isn't it going to get lost in the various junk files on all the machines it propagates to? If I post to sci.aquaria will it get sent out (and get posted locally to rec.pet.fish)? Maybe I should simply try it, but I have nothing to say about fish and don't want to just post a test message. All I can say is that these kind of shenanigans strikes me as far worse fraud than anything sci.aquaria might be accused of. I find it especially atrocious for someone who wouldn't have carried it anyway in rec, to claim that putting it in sci is dooming it to a worse distribution. Just as bad is someone saying that they have to be careful not to upset the person paying for the machine, so they're not going to carry sci.aquaria, although they would have been glad to carry rec.aquaria. If carrying rec.aquaria wouldn't upset big boss, why would sci.aquaria? As long as I'm posting, I might as well put my two cents worth in. I voted for sci.*, not *.aquaria. I would have abstained from a rec.aquaria vote. I don't understand the argument that says the name-space must remain consistent. It seems to me that that is an impossible goal, UNLESS you use a concept like Unix hard links (where a single entity occupies more than one location in the name space). I've often thought that the only ultimate shelving scheme for a library would be to just store the books in their synchronous order and do everything else with cross-referenced indexes. Trying to decide whether a book on using computers in medicine should go with computers, medicine, or create a new classification is a losing battle. Librarians solve the problem by being arbitrary, which is why figuring out where a book might be shelved can be an interesting experience without having already looked it up in the catalog. -- Steve Peltz (almost) CFI-G "Monticello traffic, Glider 949 landing 18, full stop"
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (11/16/89)
In article <1989Nov16.003038.547@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> peltz@cerl.uiuc.edu (Steve Peltz) writes: > As long as I'm posting, I might as well put my two cents worth in. I voted > for sci.*, not *.aquaria. I would have abstained from a rec.aquaria vote. OK, why did you vote for sci.* when you didn't care about the group at all? Because someone talked you into it? Because you were pissed at the folks who were trying to kill the group (we weren't, by the way)? Because you wanted to make a philosophical point? > I don't understand the argument that says the name-space must remain > consistent. It seems to me that that is an impossible goal, UNLESS you > use a concept like Unix hard links (where a single entity occupies more > than one location in the name space). We do. It's called "crossposting". (which is, by the way, generally implemented using UNIX hard links). -- `-_-' Peter da Silva <peter@ficc.uu.net> <peter@sugar.hackercorp.com>. 'U` -------------- +1 713 274 5180. "*Real* wizards don't whine about how they paid their dues" -- Quentin Johnson quent@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu