dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) (01/21/86)
Suggestion for improving quality/cutting quantity of net postings:
How about we modify Pnews/postnews to run the poster's article
through spell(1) before accepting it for posting, and putting
the user back in $EDITOR to make any corrections?
As well as improving the spelling of postings, this would allow
a reasonable amount of time for the user to reflect on the posting
and consider whether it should be sent. spell(1) is slow
enough on most systems that all postings would be reconsidered.
Dave Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
Toronto
--
{ ihnp4!utzoo pesnta utcs hcr decvax!utcsri } !lsuc!davemdf@osu-eddie.UUCP (Mark D. Freeman) (01/23/86)
Summary: In article <1048@lsuc.UUCP> dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) writes: >How about we modify Pnews/postnews to run the poster's article >through spell(1) before accepting it for posting, and putting >the user back in $EDITOR to make any corrections? This is a great idea! It is a major nuisance (sp?) to go through all the contortions necessary to run an article (or mailing for that matter)through spell before posting, particularly if it is a response, rather than an original article. I'd also like followup ("f" or "F" in rn) articles to be appended to $home\ author_copy, just like original articles are. (I'd also like outgoing mail appended to mbox.) -- <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mark D. Freeman Guest account at The Ohio State University StrongPoint Systems, Inc. mdf@osu-eddie.UUCP 209 Olentangy Street Mdf@Ohio-State.CSNET Columbus, OH 43202-2340 Mdf%Ohio-State@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA !cbosgd!osu-eddie!mdf I disclaim even my very existance. Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science. -- Gary Zukav from "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
coleman@sdcsvax.UUCP (Don Coleman) (01/25/86)
You will need some sort of an escape system for those messages which have a fair amount of program text included. You also are probably going to want to run spell on some of the headers and not others(like Subject:, but not Reply-To:). Maybe spell needs an escape sequence in-line in it's source file to tell it to skip a region... Or Pnews could just ask if spell should be run(Make it easy, but don't force it down their throats). don coleman@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu | ucbvax!sdcsvax!coleman
gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) (01/26/86)
Oh dear! Well as I see this proposal becoming popular (force spell(1)
to be applied to articles before posted), let me raise an
opposing point of view:
NO!
I agree that good spelling is an important thing, and it would be
nice if every article contained no misspelled words, but let
the *poster* do it! Why make article posting more cumbersome
for those of us with perfect spelling? And besides, we aren't
even talking about solving a *technical* problem with news, but
to appease the pedantists who cannot tolerate seeing misspelled
words posted to the network. Perhaps some spell-like filter
should be provided for *them*, so that they will never see a
misspelled word again!
PS -- I ran this article thru spell before posting it (I thought
you might like that).
--
Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,cbosgd,seismo,hplabs}!amdahl!gam
I speed up to run over unicorns.mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP (01/27/86)
key: > [ Mark D. Freeman mdf@osu-eddie ] >> [ mdf attributes to dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) ] >> How about we modify Pnews/postnews to run the poster's article >> through spell(1) before accepting it for posting, and putting >> the user back in $EDITOR to make any corrections? > This is a great idea! It is a major nuisance (sp?) to [ run article > through spell ] before posting, particularly if it is a > response, rather than an original article. I'd also like followup > ("f" or "F" in rn) articles to be appended to $home/author_copy, just > like original articles are. (I'd also like outgoing mail appended to > mbox.) ("..., just like original articles are." How about another program to check the grammar?) It would be a major nuisance (for me) to have this cruft in postnews. I can spell better than spell, at least most of the time. Usually, too, I know when I'm unsure (eg "nuisance", which spell approves of), and I run spell myself to check. This is not that difficult. But I would be sooo ticked off by something which starts another emacs for me to "correct" the spelling of something which is correct in the first place, meaning another five minutes of aggravation I don't need. If this ever appears on our system, I will simply not use it until I have fixed it to get around this. As for the $home/author_copy idea, if that is implemented, I will make $home/author_copy a soft link to /dev/null. No, probably not; I might fix that one too. Please, software people, at the very least give us a nice way to turn it off (eg a flag in .newsrc or .postnewsrc or something). Not something we have to give every time we want to post something. By the way, here is what spell complains about in this posting (everything above the first of these lines): cruft dave dev eddie emacs followup lsuc.UUCP mbox mdf newsrc osu Pnews postnews postnewsrc sooo All of the above are correct, in that they should stand as they are. I would really hate to have some program try to be smart about those and tell me I had to "correct" them. 'Nuff said. -- der Mouse USA: {ihnp4,decvax,akgua,etc}!utcsri!mcgill-vision!mouse philabs!micomvax!musocs!mcgill-vision!mouse Europe: mcvax!decvax!utcsri!mcgill-vision!mouse mcvax!seismo!cmcl2!philabs!micomvax!musocs!mcgill-vision!mouse Hacker: One who accidentally destroys / Wizard: One who recovers it afterward
wombat@ccvaxa.UUCP (01/27/86)
If you had to go through enough (easy!, automatic!) steps to get something posted, it might cut down on postings consisting of a quoted article followed by vain attempts to get out of mail using vi/ex/ed commands. 1. To followup to a posting you are first thrown into $EDITOR. 1a. To get the text of what you're replying to included you have to type a different command, documentation of which is hard for novices to find. 2. On write/exit you go through spell (unless the environment variable $NOSPELL is set). (If going to *.sources, run lint.) 3. After fixup via spell, optionally run through diction/style or whatever (user settable in .newsrc or via environment). (The default would be everything.) 4. Show the user what the article will look like when posted and ask if they want to go back into $EDITOR. 5. Calculate how much it will cost to send the article everywhere and inform the user. Ask if they still want to post the article. 6. Estimate how many people will see it, and ask again (except in soapbox groups). Unfortunately, it would probably also cut down on interested postings from people who don't want to wade through all the gibberish. I think forcing use of an editor would help some, though. Emacs users could easily run spell, and I assume it's not that difficult for vi. "When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all." Roger Zelazny, *Doorways in the Sand* Wombat ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!wombat
mdf@osu-eddie.UUCP (Mark D. Freeman) (01/27/86)
Summary: In <2645@amdahl.UUCP> gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) writes: > >Oh dear! Well as I see this proposal becoming popular (force spell(1) >to be applied to articles before posted), let me raise an >opposing point of view: > > NO! Gordon: Who said it had to be mandatory? It would be possible to have it as a shell variable switch if it is possible to do it at all. If shell variable POSTSPELL =spell then run it through spell, if it doesn't exist, then leave it alone. If POSTSPELL=foo, run it through foo (I use a locally developed 'friendly' spell). -- <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Mark D. Freeman Guest account at The Ohio State University StrongPoint Systems, Inc. mdf@osu-eddie.UUCP 209 Olentangy Street Mdf@Ohio-State.CSNET Columbus, OH 43202-2340 Mdf%Ohio-State@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA !cbosgd!osu-eddie!mdf I disclaim even my very existance. Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion, Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science. -- Gary Zukav from "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
rcd@opus.UUCP (01/28/86)
> Suggestion for improving quality/cutting quantity of net postings: > > How about we modify Pnews/postnews to run the poster's article > through spell(1) before accepting it for posting, and putting > the user back in $EDITOR to make any corrections? How about we don't. I already get enough nice-guy blather from our postnews--the ** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ** non-help is only the most obvious nuisance. Applying spell to netnews has at least the following problems: - cautiousness. If spell doesn't know a word, it must report it as misspelled. - limited knowledge of subject areas. I ran three of my recent postings from net.wines through spell. It turned up 25 alleged misspellings (excluding article-header items), none of which were actually misspelled. I don't expect spell to know that `wort' is a word, but I don't want to be punished for its ignorance. - ignorance of proper nouns. Think through the newsgroups we have; do you really want to enter the names of every computer manufac- turer, auto mfr, winery, etc., so that they won't come up as misspelled? - ignorance of hyphenation. You could add a filter to glue hyphena- ted words back together, but now you're piling on complexity. - ignorance of colloquial usage. The evanescent nature of netnews articles is such that colloquial usage like "tho" or "thru" is quite acceptable, tho spell rejects it. > As well as improving the spelling of postings, this would allow > a reasonable amount of time for the user to reflect on the posting > and consider whether it should be sent. spell(1) is slow > enough on most systems that all postings would be reconsidered. Using this logic, we can reduce car traffic by making all traffic lights stay red both directions for a while--traffic would slow down enough that all travel would be reconsidered?! No, your logic here says that requiring a spell(1) pass will reward only persistence, not correctness! I try to be careful about spelling in my articles, but frankly I'm a better speller than spell(1) applied to my usage. By that I mean that I am less likely to misspell a word that I use than spell is likely to mis-report a word. Simple technique: I don't use words that I can't spell; this limits errors to typos and those occcccasional keyboard flakies. Spelling errors may be painful--but if you check for spelling, how about checking for grammar and punctuation? Once you've covered those, all that's left is to see if the article posted actually says anything useful:-) -- Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086 ...Worst-case analysis must never begin with "No one will ever want..."
dave@lsuc.UUCP (David Sherman) (01/29/86)
In article <2645@amdahl.UUCP> gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) writes: > >Oh dear! Well as I see this proposal becoming popular (force spell(1) >to be applied to articles before posted), let me raise an >opposing point of view: > > NO! > >I agree that good spelling is an important thing, and it would be >nice if every article contained no misspelled words, but let >the *poster* do it! Why make article posting more cumbersome >for those of us with perfect spelling? And besides, we aren't >even talking about solving a *technical* problem with news, but >to appease the pedantists who cannot tolerate seeing misspelled >words posted to the network. Perhaps some spell-like filter >should be provided for *them*, so that they will never see a >misspelled word again! Gordon, you're missing the point. Correct spelling is merely a beneficial side-effect of what I've proposed. The main point is to make the process of posting somewhat less instantaneous and less automatic. Pnews has the right idea, in requesting confirmation that you indeed want to post the article. But once you get used to that, you just factor that in and type the 'p' to post it without even thinking. Using spell(1) would be very different, because the response you would get, and the thought processes you would have to invoke (i.e., check through the list to make sure you haven't misspelled anything) would be different each time. Another possibility, which would only reduce the speed of information flow slightly, would be for any articles you post to be stored and mailed back to you for confirmation an hour later. You would then have to reply to your local "posting automaton", confirming that you do indeed want to post the article, and it would go out. This kind of enforced "cooling-off" period might be very valuable. Of course, it would also be a bit harder to implement. Dave Sherman The Law Society of Upper Canada Toronto -- { ihnp4!utzoo pesnta utcs hcr decvax!utcsri } !lsuc!dave
ins_akaa@jhunix.UUCP (Ken Arromdee) (01/29/86)
>If you had to go through enough (easy!, automatic!) steps to get something >posted, it might cut down on postings consisting of a quoted article >followed by vain attempts to get out of mail using vi/ex/ed commands. > >1. To followup to a posting you are first thrown into $EDITOR. Right now I use rn, which calls Pnews, which calls $EDITOR. This suggestion is _already_implemented_. >1a. To get the text of what you're replying to included you have to type a > different command, documentation of which is hard for novices to > find. "f"=forward without including "F"=forward with including. It IS already a different command, at least in rn. As for making documentation hard to find, isn't that contrary to the purpose of documentation? Also, I doubt concealing the documentation would work, since one way novices gain information is by asking a more experienced user who, presumably, would know the answer. If you meant to just call the editor and require the user to manually include the appropriate /usr/spool/news/*/* file... well, I don't support the idea of making something difficult to do for legitimate users just because novices can make mistakes. >2. On write/exit you go through spell (unless the environment variable > $NOSPELL is set). (If going to *.sources, run lint.) I think enough has been said about the inadequacies of spell used on articles. >3. After fixup via spell, optionally run through diction/style or > whatever (user settable in .newsrc or via environment). (The default > would be everything.) Why should the user have to set such defaults? I strongly suspect that most users won't want to do this. I have no qualms about giving the user the option to run diction/style easily, but why make such CPU- (and connect- time-consuming) behavior the default? >4. Show the user what the article will look like when posted and ask if they > want to go back into $EDITOR. Same problem here, except that here there isn't even a suggestion that an advanced user could bypass this with .newsrc or environment. >5. Calculate how much it will cost to send the article everywhere and inform > the user. Ask if they still want to post the article. A) This won't stop any posting and B) I'm sick and tired of programs asking me if I really wanted to do something. (For instance, Pnews asks me if I really want to post an article [around the world][around the USA][throughout the local organization].) >6. Estimate how many people will see it, and ask again (except in soapbox > groups). Same here. We don't (at least I don't) need programs that go through a lot of annoying questions before working. Anyway, why would anyone decide not to post an article after being told how many people would see it? >Unfortunately, it would probably also cut down on interested postings from >people who don't want to wade through all the gibberish. Exactly. Discouraging postings from new users by discouraging all postings just doesn't seem to make sense, somehow. -- "We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by iself. The bad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its... Did I say socialism?" -Fidel Castro Kenneth Arromdee BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS CSNET: ins_akaa@jhunix.CSNET ARPA: ins_akaa%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA UUCP: ...allegra!hopkins!jhunix!ins_akaa -- "We are going to give a little something, a few little years more, to socialism, because socialism is defunct. It dies all by iself. The bad thing is that socialism, being a victim of its... Did I say socialism?" -Fidel Castro Kenneth Arromdee BITNET: G46I4701 at JHUVM and INS_AKAA at JHUVMS CSNET: ins_akaa@jhunix.CSNET ARPA: ins_akaa%jhunix@hopkins.ARPA UUCP: ...allegra!hopkins!jhunix!ins_akaa
iwm@icdoc.UUCP (Ian Moor) (01/30/86)
In article <2645@amdahl.UUCP> gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) writes: > >to appease the pedantists who cannot tolerate seeing misspelled ^^^^^^^^^^ >PS -- I ran this article thru spell before posting it (I thought We pedants don't like this word. I think spell must have done the remove suffix and check for valid word on this. -- Ian W Moor UUCP: seismo!mcvax!ukc!icdoc!iwm ARPA: iwm%icdoc@ucl Department of Computing Whereat a great and far-off voice was heard, saying, Imperial College. Poop-poop-poopy, and it was even so; and the days 180 Queensgate of Poopy Panda were long in the land. London SW7 Uk.