jeff@rlgvax.UUCP (Jeffrey Kegler) (12/19/83)
I suggest that discussions should be given a formal status
within the net. The discussion is given its title by the initiator (by
default, the discussion group is the same as the subject line).
The first article would be treated as is done currently, and in effect,
the discussion group is equivalent to the news group. (For example, in
this case, discussion group "Discussion groups" begins as equivalent to
net.news)
A new command would be available, 'ud' perhaps, to desubscribe to a
discussion group. Someone having been so kind as to read this far and
saying, 'this is NOT what I read net.news for', (perhaps he is more
interested in keeping up with current news usage and protocol than
blue-sky issues), will simply issue the 'ud' command. He will see no
further articles in the discussion group.
This would avoid a couple difficulties currently encountered:
1.) It is no longer necessary to flame those people discussing a
peripheral subject on a busy newsgroup. The uninterested may simply
'ud' the proofs that 0=1 on net.math or the discussion of trademarks on
net.unix-wizards and be blissfully unaware of further developments in
these areas.
2.) There are some points in newsgroups (net.sf-lovers, recently) where
discussion for and against forming a new newsgroup takes up most of the
room in that news group. This is sort of like an operating system
thrashing (that is, as a news group approaches capacity, discussions
of how to avoid having it reach overcapacity take up so much space that
there is less room for the material the newsgroup was intended to
cover). Under this system we can simply establish some objective
criterion under which a discussion group or a set of them, which prove
particularly busy and long-lived, can be formed into a new newsgroup.
--
Jeffrey Kegler, CCI Office Systems Division
...{allegra,seismo,mcnc,lime,brl-bmd}!rlgvax!jeff