rang@cs.wisc.edu (Anton Rang) (11/02/89)
After seeing the {alt|rec|sci}.aquaria issue blow up into one of the
larger controversies this year, I've been thinking about what the
*real* issues are here. I see at least two.
(1) The current hierarchy (in particular, the top-level groups) is
not well-defined. One person's hobby is another person's work.
Some "social" issues are considered "miscellaneous"; others are
considered only "talk" without substance.
(2) This wouldn't be such a big problem, except that the hierarchy
is overloaded. Instead of being only a naming mechanism, the
name of a group also implies distribution to a large extent.
The current name hierarchy could definitely use work. The comp
groups are organized fairly well, probably because most people on
USENET are familiar with computers. (This makes sense to me... :-)
However, some of the other groups could be reorganized using a bit of
hindsight ("misc.jobs.misc", for instance, seems a tad redundant).
More important in the long run, I think, is to detach the issue of
distribution from group names. I'm not a news guru, and don't know
the details of how distribution control works currently; however, as
long as distribution and naming go hand-in-hand, more controversial
name choices are bound to arise.
Comments?
Anton
+----------------------------------+------------------+
| Anton Rang (grad student) | rang@cs.wisc.edu |
| University of Wisconsin--Madison | |
+----------------------------------+------------------+