telecom-gateway@vector.Dallas.TX.US (06/23/89)
TELECOM Digest Wed, 21 Jun 89 01:00:09 CDT Special: sci.commtech
Today's Topics: Moderator: Patrick Townson
Please Stop Confusing Sci.commtech (Bruce Klopfenstein)
Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom (John Higdon)
Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom (Tony Scott)
Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom (Steve Cisler)
Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom (Will Martin)
Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom (TELECOM Moderator)
[Moderator's Note: This special issue of the Digest has been prepared to
distribute the various replies, pro and con, of the proposal to start a
new Usenet group 'sci.commtech'. Some readers of the Digest and comp.
dcom.telecom have insisted that a new group of this nature will cause
fewer messages of merit to appear in TELECOM Digest. Others, including
the founder of the new group, Bruce Klopfenstein, have insisted this
will not be the case. As you will see from the correspondence below,
there is still mixed opinion on the subject.
*NO REPLIES TO THIS DIGEST WILL BE PRINTED*. Further correspondence
should be only with Bruce Klopfenstein, or in 'news.groups'. It is only
appearing here as a courtesy, since if any existing group would be at
all likely to be affected, it would be telecom. PT]
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Bruce Klopfenstein <bgsuvax!klopfens@cis.ohio-state.edu>
Subject: PLEASE STOP CONFUSING SCI.COMMTECH!
Date: 17 Jun 89 18:40:05 GMT
Organization: Bowling Green State University B.G., Oh.
{A message FAVORING sci.commtech}
Sci.commtech is *NOT* comp.dcom.telecom! That was the subject of
a posting I placed here days ago in response to a misled posting
bashing sci.commtech as being just like comp.dcom.telecom and
waiting to gobble up useful comp.tcom.telecom postings and drag
them into a black hole, far away from comp.dcom.telecom readers!
GOOD GRIEF!
IT IS FAR BEYOND THE DISCUSSION STAGE FOR SCI.COMMTECH! Unfortunately,
posters like this "clearly" did not follow this discussion. As I
continue to scan the postings in comp.dcom.telecom, I continue to be
amazed at how anyone comes to Mr. Martin's conclusion! I's like to
say sci.commtech will be complementary to comp.dcom.telecom, but as
it was discussed, I think sci.commtech will be so DIFFERENT from
comp.dcom.telecom (and the digest) that it will not be of much interest
to many who read and post here.
Fire engines are not green. You cannot believe Chinese government
accounts about the party on Tiananmen Square, and SCI.COMMTECH IS
NOT COMP.DCOM.TELECOM!
One more try: go to your library an find 2 trade publications:
Telephony and Broadcasting. Telephony will interest comp.dcom.telecom
readers, and Broadcasting will interest sci.commtech readers. Take
the sci.commtech challenge. Judge for yourself.
IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT SCI.COMMTECH... E-MAIL ME AND I WILL
REPLY! DO NOT BLINDLY FOLLOW MR. MARTIN'S CATTLE CALL!
Thanks.
Bruce Klopfenstein
P.S. I will be delighted to disctribute sci.commtech to those who cannot
read it, but the majority of comp.dcom.telecom readers will not be
interested (unless they choose to pick up a new area of reading).
--
Dr. Bruce C. Klopfenstein | klopfens@andy.bgsu.edu
Radio-TV-Film Department | klopfenstein@bgsuopie.bitnet
Bowling Green $tate University | klopfens@bgsuvax.UUCP
Bowling Green, OH 43403 | (419) 372-2138; 352-4818
| fax (419) 372-2300
------------------------------
Subject: Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom
Date: 18 Jun 89 11:37:50 PDT (Sun)
From: John Higdon <john@zygot.uucp>
{A message OPPOSING the new group}
> If anyone has anything further to say for or against sci.commtech,
> send me your messages.
Ok, here goes. If frankness earns points, this should get a high score.
When I first started reading comp.dcom.telecom about a year ago, I
couldn't believe that as many uninformed bozos could exist in one
place. Questions like "how do I use call waiting?" and "why can't I
seem to make my long distance company work from my Time Magazine promo
phone?" were all too typical.
A number of us in California even created our own limited issue
telephone group on USENET so that we could intelligently discuss SS#7,
effects of divestiture, generic programming of digital switches, etc.
The group is distributed statewide and is even carried within Pac*Bell.
Then an amazing thing began to happen. The DIGEST started to improve.
Interesting comments began to appear and intelligent replies became the
norm rather than the exception. I suspect that your influence has been
a factor, but in any event, this forum is now somewhat worthwhile.
This is to be contrasted with the drek on rec.* (read rec.audio
lately?) and on sci.*. Sci.electronics sometimes appears with fifty
posts talking about types of LEDs. Can you imagine the zoo resulting
from sci.commtech? One of the justifications is that it would be for
those less techincally minded. I was unaware that every article in the
DIGEST was technically oriented. Social and political issues are
frequently the order of the day, and the explanation of technical
issues are usually in terms any layman could understand.
If any matters of substance ever did show up on sci.commtech, wouldn't
we miss out on the discussion on the DIGEST? If there was frequent
cross-posting, wouldn't we be bombarded with the type of buffoonery
that permeates the sci groups in general?
No, sir. Having seen before and after pictures of the DIGEST, I'm not
much interested in purposely throwing a box of nails in the road.
Besides, at the risk of sounding elitist, the average person doesn't
know enough about the telecommunications industry to even ask
intelligent questions, let alone have a legitimate opinion. Nor do they
have, as I have found, much interest in the topic, either.
My resounding NO vote has already been sent.
---
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.uucp | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 89 16:05:43 PDT
From: Tony Scott <ps110ts%sdcc12@ucsd.edu>
Subject: Re: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom
Reply-To: Tony Scott <ps110ts%sdcc12@ucsd.edu>
Organization: Univ. of California, San Diego
{Another message FAVORING the new group}
I'm interested in computer-mediated communications, especially
how people use electronic mail. I've worked as a telecommunications
consultant for school districts, and I used to be an international
telephone operator. Point of all this background is that when I
started doing my research I used to subscribe to
comp.dcom.telecom. I gave up because the signal-to-noise ratio of
articles discussing rotary-vs-touchtone, or exchange or line
capacity, or other TECHNICAL aspects of the field was too high
(that's noise for me) compared to discussion about what people DO
with the stuff when they've got it. I just signed up to read the
comp.dcom.telecom vs sci.commtech discussion, and found the same
S-to-N ratio (in my terms) still persists. I did notice on the
way through the messages someone saying c-d-t was formed to take
the technical stuff out of human-nets...
I think there is room for both groups to exist side-by-side. If
people are conscientious about cross-posting and summarising to the
other group, those without USENET will not be too greatly
disadvantaged. After all, comp.dcom.telecom exists alongside several
other groups which might have conflicting interests - rtty in
ham-packet radio, for instance; and I've seen discussion of cellular
phones in rec.aviation..
basically, USENET is about connections, not boundaries.
Tony Scott, Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, UCSD
ascott@ucsd.edu
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 89 17:23:29 PDT
From: Steve Cisler <sac@apple.com>
Subject: sci.commtech
{Still another message FAVORING the new group}
I urge a yes vote on sci.commtech. Mr. Martin and others with no
access to Usenet can go through public access systems such as Portal,
The WELL, or any of the 30+ public unix systems around the U.S.
I think there may be some overlap between this group and the proposed
one, but much of the more subjective matter or the discussions about
the social aspects of these new technologies may not be that welcome
by many of the comp.dcom.telecom readers.
Steve Cisler
Apple Library
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 89 10:15:07 CDT
From: Will Martin <wmartin@st-louis-emh2.army.mil>
Subject: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom
{A message OPPOSING the new group}
I wasn't going to say any more about this, but since my name was mentioned in
the announcement for the special issue, I thought I'd drop in some last lines:
Re the suggestion that the new sci.commtech be set up with a gatewayed mailing
list of its own so as to not cut off the non-USENET participants from those
discussions -- this is NOT a trivial task. There is a working Internet mailing
list now -- the Telecom Digest. To set up another list requires a LOT of work,
and an agreement from a host to support the mailing workload and the disk
space for perpetual archive storage and anonymous FTP access, plus a personal
commitment from a moderator or mailing-list maintainer. It makes no sense
to attempt to duplicate all this that exists already for the Telecom Digest.
(Internet hosts have been becoming more and more reluctant to support mailing
lists over the past years -- it is now much harder to set up a new list.)
If sci.commtech is formed, I hope that the traffic in that group that is not
already cross-posted to comp.dcom.telecom be picked up and included in the
Telecom Digest. That would permit the Internet mailing-list community to
continue to see these discussions. Unfortunately, it will be difficult to
meaningfully participate in them, since responses sent to the Telecom Digest
would end up being posted to comp.dcom.telecom instead of sci.commtech.
Actually, the whole thing about setting up the new group seems to be a
case of trying to fix something that isn't broken. This is very common on
USENET; I saw it happening continuously over the past years. (I did have
access to USENET for some time, several years ago.) There is a constant
effort to splinter groups into more and more narrow topical divisions.
I myself can't really understand this motivation -- I usually want to
see as much as possible, and fewer wider-ranging groups serve that
desire better than many small individual special-purpose groups.
Anyway, to summarize, it still seems to me that it is in the best
interests of Internet mailing-list participants that the new group NOT
be formed, as it would inevitably, to some degree, impact adversely
on the existing Telecom Digest / comp.dcom.telecom situation.
(By the way, I get the impression that this is a raging and vitally
personal issue to some people out there. I do not have much emotional
investment in this myself, so I'm sorry if this is being viewed as me
"attacking" someone. It is just that it seems more sensible to me to
leave things alone since they are working OK now, so far as is apparent
to me. I can live with whatever the result is -- it would just be nicer
if it came out the way I think best... :-)
Regards, Will Martin
------------------------------
From: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator)
Date: 21 June, 1989 00:05:00
Subject: sci.commtech vrs. comp.dcom.telecom
{What I think about the matter}
When the first message was posted, announcing the plans for this new group,
I suggested that telecom readers follow Usenet tradition and cast their
vote. As you probably know, the establishment of any new group on Usenet
(other than alt.anything) requires 100 more 'yes' votes than 'no' votes
to be successful. I originally recommended a vote of yes, in an effort to
help the new group get started. I did not see any real problem with another
technical group -- even one dealing with communications -- on the net.
Now I have read the several objections presented by Digest subscribers,
and have had a chance to re-think my own position on the matter. I have
to say honestly I still don't see any real problem with it. There are various
groups now which discuss telecommunications to some extent or another in
addition to the Digest. For example, sci.electronics occassionally touches
on telephone topics, such as the recent discussion on payphone phreaking.
'Comp.risks' sometimes prints things of interest to telecom people; and
in fact some items have appeared here first and been transported to Risks
by an interested reader of both journals. I've also published things here
with first were in Risks; likewise, sometimes an interesting article on
phones or phone service which has appeared in misc.consumers has been
forwarded to the Digest for use.
The people who want to read/contribute to TELECOM Digest will continue to
do so. I do not anticipate losing any readers or seeing any changes in the
basic stuff we talk about here. I could be wrong, of course,
I would ask that the proposed new group, if established, immediatly set
up an interchange policy with the Digest. Items specifically related to
telephones, voice communications and similar should be forwarded here by
the moderator, just as I would forward more broadcast oriented stuff to
him. It is that kind of a spirit of cooperation that describes what Usenet
is all about. I'd like his okay to automatically re-publish something which
catches my fancy and would appeal to Digest readers; just as he would have
my okay to do the same.
My last reading of the interim vote results showed about nine or ten 'no'
votes and about eighty 'yes' votes. There is still time to vote as you
see fit.
TO LEARN HOW TO VOTE: Send email to Bruce, at the address shown in his
message here (the first one). I suggest you not indicate *how* you
wish to vote, but simply ask him to advise you of the voting address and
specifications. Then go do it.
Frankly, I expect to see most of you hear after the vote, and for the
indefinite future.
*NO MESSAGES PERTAINING TO THIS SPECIAL ISSUE OF THE DIGEST WILL BE PUBLISHED
OR CONSIDERED AFTER THIS TIME* This special issue of the Digest was only
published as a courtesy because I published the original announcement
and a rebuttal -- then several more messages arrived. Ordinarily, all
discussion pertaining to new groups must be conducted in 'news.groups' and
'news.misc'. Since TELECOM Digest *could* conceivably be affected by the
establishment of sci.commtech, this discussion was presented.
It is up to you, the users at this point.
{Now, what do YOU think?}
Patrick Townson
TELECOM Digest Moderator
End of TELECOM Digest Special Edition: sci.commtech
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