alan@servax0.essex.ac.uk (Stanier A) (09/23/89)
In article <506@banyan.UUCP> gil@banyan.com writes:
?Think about organizing a filing cabinet. Would you leave a bunch
?empty, labled folders hanging around ? Not after the second or third
?time you went looking for something that was misfiled or just hard to
?find. Who wants to keep looking in empty folders ?
?
That is a lousy analogy. Newsgroups signal the fact they have unread
articles in them, whereas folders do not.
In any case, we are not talking about empty newsgroups, but ones with
little traffic. That traffic will not go away if the newsgroup does, but
will be added to some other newsgroup - through which readers will then
have to wade to find the articles that interest them. Deleting little-used
newsgroups will make Usenet harder, not easier, to use.
--
Alan M Stanier * University of Essex, Colchester CO4 3SQ, England
email alan@essex.ac.uk |
voice +44 206-872153 |
fax +44 206-860585 | If in doubt, do.chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (09/23/89)
>?Think about organizing a filing cabinet. Would you leave a bunch >?empty, labled folders hanging around ? > That is a lousy analogy. Newsgroups signal the fact they have unread >articles in them, whereas folders do not. > In any case, we are not talking about empty newsgroups, but ones with >little traffic. No, it isn't a lousy analogy, because you're thinking in terms of reading newsgroups. The real problem is one of posting to the correct newsgroup. Think of this situation: you are a manager for a large computer company. You hire a temporary secretary for two weeks to take that three inch stack of papers and file it into your filing cabinet. You tell him to read each paper and file it in the folder that is most appropriate (but that he can't make new folders). Now, is this person going to be more likely to find the proper folders if there are 400 folders or 600 folders? And, to tie this *back* to reading, if you then want to go find one of those papers he filed, what are the chances that you and he are going to agree on the name of the folder? Are you more likely to agree if there are 600 folders? or 400? Realistically, whether the filer (in USENET jargon, the poster) and the reader find the same folder depends entirely on how well the folder names have been defined (the USENET name space), how unambiguous the material is and how well the filer can think. USENET has the advantage of cross-posting to reduce some of the ambiguity/lookup problem, but I feel that using that as a 'solution' is red-herring: the filer, for instance, could simply file a Xerox of each letter in each file and we'd have 100% lookup success, but a total failure as a filing system. Optimally, we should never have a need to cross-post. Reality isn't optimal, but the % of cross-posting should be taken as an indication that the group isn't well named or well defined (or is unnecessary, except as a symbolic link to other newsgroups). The analogy is actually pretty good. The problem with the USENET name space is the same as a filing cabinet -- how can Joe Random Novice User figure out which folder to stick his message in while (1) minimizing the number of copies he has to make to cover the options, and (2) make sure that the people who are looking for the message are looking in the same place he's putting it. That's the problem with too many group names, and groups that aren't used. They make it hard for the novice to find the *proper* place for postings that aren't somewhat ambiguous. That's why we have naming space wars: to try to make it easier for the new kids, not to protect the experts. The experts have already figured it out (I hope!). -- Chuq Von Rospach <+> Editor,OtherRealms <+> Member SFWA/ASFA chuq@apple.com <+> CI$: 73317,635 <+> [This is myself speaking. I am not Appl Segmentation Fault. Core dumped.