jdb@mordor.UUCP (John Bruner) (10/24/85)
I know I'm going to be flamed for this, but I'd like to express a dissenting point of view regarding the new newsgroup names that have started showing up. I admire the people who put so much time into USENET, and I generally agree with their positions, but on this one I'm in opposition. I don't like long newsgroup names. In particular, I don't like names like mod.computers.macintosh I don't believe that names have to be "cute", but I ask for some restraint in the choice of new names. Long names are hard to type, and there are still common contexts in which typing a newsgroup name is required. Two which come to mind immediately are the "N" command in readnews/vnews and the "g" command in "rn" (yes, I know about the search command in "rn"). Is "mod.computers.macintosh" really more specific than "mod.computers.mac" (or even "mod.comp.mac")? I think not. Is is harder to type? Certainly. (I'm a touch typist. I wonder how much the average hunt-and-peck user will enjoy the additional length.) Certainly I agree that ARPANET digest names such as "laser-lovers" and "sun-spots" invite confusion. I'm not arguing in favor of retaining those names. I'm not arguing that all newsgroup names be limited to 14 characters (for ancient reasons). I'd just like to see some restraint in the length of names. -- John Bruner (S-1 Project, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) MILNET: jdb@mordor [jdb@s1-c.ARPA] (415) 422-0758 UUCP: ...!ucbvax!dual!mordor!jdb ...!seismo!mordor!jdb