manly@UMASS.BITNET (08/02/87)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hello everyone.
I have a suggestion for decreasing the volume of messages which are sent over
this discussion list every day, hopefully without substantially decreasing the
amount of useful information which those messages contain.
What I would ask is that people SEND ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS TO THE PEOPLE WHO
ASKED THEM, AND THAT THESE PEOPLE IN TURN SUMMARIZE TO THE NET instead of
people sending answers to INFO-VAX individually.
As an example (which I only chose because it was recent -- there have many
other examples in the last year) there is the flurry of messages which have
been showing up in large numbers concerning the differing results obtained by
DISKQUOTA vs. DIR/GRAND.
I think that, in general, we all would all be better off if answers and
suggestions were being sent directly to the person who posted the original
message. He could then post a summary of the information/suggestions/ helpful
hints sent to him. Then we would all have still gained from the accumulated
wisdom of the people who have taken the time to learn the ins and outs of
Diskquotas and file headers, but would only have had to deal with a couple of
messages on the subject. Another example is the less recent flood of answers
to a query or message concerning an apparent bug with the SYS$ANNOUNCE logical
name. Other examples have abounded in the last year.
I realize that this puts more responsibility on the person posting the question
than before since this plan will not work UNLESS PEOPLE TAKE THE TIME TO POST
SUMMARIES. But I think this a responsibility the questioners should be taking
anyway. And considering the amount of network traffic this could reduce, I
think the rewards would be well worth the time.
I admit this would change the "flavor" of INFO-VAX somewhat, since it would
then mostly contain pairs of messages (one posing the question and one
summarizing the answers received) rather than dialogues, but I would rather
live with that than with dozens of messages a day. I worry that the number of
messages will get so large that a substantial number of people will begin
removing themselves from the list because they cannot keep up with the volume.
Granted, this approach will not work with some of the more philosophic
discussions which take place (UNIX vs. VMS or the definition of Hacker), but it
would be nice if it at least could be adopted with more straightforward
questions which just require a technical answer or some obscure piece of
information. At least this approach will remove most of the duplicate
information which tends to appear in this forum in large quantities.
I think that INFO-VAX is an invaluable resource to system managers, and I have
found a great deal of useful information on it, in answers to other people's
questions, and I would not like to lose that source of information. BUT, I
would rather get a summary of information (even if it just a concatinated file
of the more significant answers) than huge numbers of duplicated solutions.
I think it is important to keep this list accessible, both in terms of
technical explanations being readable to less knowledgeable people (something
done VERY well by most contributors to this list), and also in terms of VOLUME.
I hope everyone will at least consider this suggestion.
BITNET: JWMANLY@AMHERST John W. Manly
System Manager
Amherst College
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~