brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) (03/14/88)
In article <3458@cbmvax.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes: >Does anyone else out there think this group a day rate of new >group vote proposals is out of control? Do you think that party >will last forever? Problem is it's under too much control. The rate is far too low right now. We waste megs of net bandwidth arguing about groups, collecting votes etc. when this group (news.groups) really shouldn't exist. In the old days (I'm talking 1982 when this first came up) the main excuse I heard for not creating groups was that the software couldn't handle an arbitrary number. Over 5 years later, this problem is still there, and it's a major one. There are a number of people out there who feel that, even if the software were fixed to avoid a hard group limit (or limits where some costs go up greatly with the number of groups) that we should still be heavily restrictive on the number of groups. The reason given is that it would get too confusing. I've always disagreed with this, but there's never been any feel about what the rest of the net thinks. The modified version of what I proposed all those years ago says that article classification should go like this: A) A limited number of general classifications. Probably limited to around 100, but possibly quite a lot less. Call this the "newsgroup," for historical reasons. Examples: Games, Sport, Sex, Politics, Relgion. On this net, otherwise specific topics like "Unix", "IBM-PC" etc. might also qualify. B) An unlimited number of sub-classifications. Anybody can create a sub-classification, subject to the approval of a group of moderators, who serve only to ensure proper naming and non-duplication. Call these "forums" or "keywords". C) An arbitrary number of "topics". Every new (non-followup) article would be given a topic, just a few words long. Followups would be grouped under the topic. D) A distinct subject for each article. No "Re:" -- the topic provides that. Each poster would be required to put a distinct subject on the article, or perhaps a summary. --------------------- The hierarchy means there is no difficulty understanding what's going on, or finding the discussion you want. The only argument that could take place would be over the creation of a new master category. As long as a misc master category existed (and it would) there would be no stopping the creation of a group. If one saw a handful of related new forums in the "misc" category, it would be obvious that we needed a new master category. Nobody need tell anybody, though, as forums would not be forced to exist within a master category, it would just be a matter of convenience. ----------------------- This isn't a lot different from what I proposed ages ago, although it does fix some flaws. But believe me, it's better than the current system, which is very flawed. Imagine, some people go around saying a group has to have a certain volume to justify it! You ask me, groups should be required to be BELOW a certain volume (and not a high one) to justify their existence. We need more, quieter, saner forums, not fewer, noisier ones that everybody argues about the name of. -- Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (03/17/88)
Folks, the loose committee of net readers isn't going to solve the
problem of NetNoise traffic, newsgroups, etc, by saying "this isn't
right," or even "this is the way it should be." The way to do it is
to DO IT. We spend (how much time?) in front of our tubes each day
(how many of you call work/school from home at nights/weekends to read
news?); we're all creative computer nerds, we can invest some time
to come up with a solution.
MANY people (myself included) want to see keyword-based news. A
couple of people have started keyword-based newsreaders within the
current system. If that's your bag, help work on an implementation!
Other people (myself included!) want to see a heirarchical network,
where NetNews splinters into regional nets with moderated feeds into
national and international lists. Less traffic, less propagation
delays (at least at teh regional level).
Think about the way you get paper information now: a local newspaper,
a regional newspaper, magazines. All are for different purposes, and
all have both keyword (headlines) and subject (columns) based news.
There's no reason electronic news can't do much of the same. Usenet
can't last a whole lot longer in it's current form; it's going to
collapse on itself. Entropy wins. But we can learn from it, and
architect some new ideas in the meantime. But we have to DO IT,
not bitch about the current system.
You say "So Bob, what are YOU doing about it?" At the moment, I can't
spend a lot of time coding a new system, but I think about keyword and
regional news all the time. I tried to get regional news started here
in New England but was too ambitious; a new plan of attack is needed,
but I think it can work and will try to do it. At least I got many
of the NE news admins talking to each other!
I'm also formally starting a mailing list for a keyword-based news
system. The list will discuss design issues, and coordinate
development of such a system. I'd like to see a mailing list or
newsgroup devoted to interest and research of NetNews-futures, which
Chuqi & I were hot on a while back, but neither or us had the time to
do anything about it.
Want to help with keyward-based news? send a request to
knews-request@ulowell.{edu.uucp,csnet}, and tell me how you can help,
even if it's "I have lots of ideas". I'll put together a list of
people with similar interests and we can get the ball rolling.
What are YOU doing to solve the problem?
..Bob
--
Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. page@swan.ulowell.edu ulowell!page
"Why? It's the heat." -- Laurie Andersondavidbe@sco.COM (The Cat in the Hat) (03/17/88)
Remember way back when in article <1480@looking.UUCP> when brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) said...
[ Brad's hierarchy for newsgroups removed. I'll let others yell about that. ]
-
-Imagine, some people go around saying a group has to have a certain
-volume to justify it! You ask me, groups should be required to be
-BELOW a certain volume (and not a high one) to justify their existence.
-
-We need more, quieter, saner forums, not fewer, noisier ones that everybody
-argues about the name of.
---
-Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473
The last thing we need is nice, quiet, sedate[d], BORING newsgroups. I welcome
the exchange of ideas, the yelling and screaming, the criticisms of Microport
in comp.unix.xenix, etc. If people can't manage their own reading time it's
their problem. But if you moderate everything, which is the only way to
create "saner" forums, you've got people spending a large amount of time
when they shouldn't have to. The comp groups especially benefit from the
large volume - both of code/binaries and of technical articles.
And I'd like to know...what do you mean by "BELOW a certain volume"? Do
you mean number of articles or length of articles? Would you force the
creation of comp.sources.ibm-pc.this.that.whatever simply to get under the
volume limit? Not a good situation to me.
To me, the easiest way to organize ALL of the newsgroups would be in a
SINGLE newsgroup, with at least one more header, and better use of keywords.
Imagine not having to worry about large numbers of history files, and the
such. The one newsgroup makes organization incredibly simple...and it makes
reading through news much more fun. Reading may take a little longer but
you can't have everything. (note :-) for that...but only partly).
You can't always get what you want/But if you try sometimes/you might find/
you can't get nothing...
--
DavidBedno(akaTheCatintheHat,Dr.Seuss,Dr.Dave,Bamf)Nowappearingat:
davidbe@sco.COM-OR-...!{uunet,ihnp4,decvax!microsoft,ucbvax!ucscc}
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