rpw3@redwood.UUCP (Rob Warnock) (11/05/84)
While browsing through net.flame\\\\\\\\\ oops, uh..., net.news.group, ;-}
I was reminded of a little story Gerry Weinberg tells in his slim book,
"Rethinking Systems Analysis and Design" (1982 Little, Brown, &co.).
He calls it The Railroad Paradox, and I'll see if I can summarize it
without losing too much:
Citizens of a certain suburb wanted the mid-afternoon train to stop
at their station, so they could go shopping in the city, but it just
whizzed by every day at 2:30pm. So they petitioned the railroad for
the train to stop, and received this reply:
"Thank you for your interest in Mainline Railroad. We take seriously
our committment to fine service to the communities along our routes.
In response to your petition, one of our customer service persons
visited your station on three separate days at 2:30 in the afternoon.
Though he observed with great care, on NO OCCASION WERE THERE ANY
PASSENGERS WAITING AT THE STATION. We can only conclude that there is
no real demand for a 2:30 stop, and therefore must decline your
petition. -- The Management"
Weinberg claims this is a true story (names changed). He gives several other
examples of The Railroad Paradox, for instance: A systems analyst received
a request to modify the algorithm used in a certain report in calculating
predicted stock prices. She asked the brokers, "How often do you use that
part of the report?", and got back the answer, "Uh..., never." "WELL!", said
the analyst, "We certainly can't waste valuable programming resources making
frivilous changes!" and she denied the request. (Of course, they never used
the report because the bug in the algorithm made the numbers TOTALLY WRONG!)
While it doesn't necessarily carry over completely, I am nevertheless
reminded of a certain style of interchange in this news group:
A: "Let's create net.foo.bar, so we can talk about 'bar' without
being flooded (or attacked) by the traffic in net.foo"
B: "There aren't enough articles in net.foo which talk about 'bar',
so request denied!"
A: [(*sigh*) But everybody's TIRED of trying to use net.foo ...]
Just thought you'd be interested...
Rob Warnock
UUCP: {ihnp4,ucbvax!amd}!fortune!redwood!rpw3
DDD: (415)572-2607
Envoy: rob.warnock/kingfisher
USPS: 510 Trinidad Ln, Foster City, CA 94404wls@astrovax.UUCP (William L. Sebok) (11/07/84)
> While it doesn't necessarily carry over completely, I am nevertheless > reminded of a certain style of interchange in this news group: > > A: "Let's create net.foo.bar, so we can talk about 'bar' without > being flooded (or attacked) by the traffic in net.foo" > B: "There aren't enough articles in net.foo which talk about 'bar', > so request denied!" > A: [(*sigh*) But everybody's TIRED of trying to use net.foo ...] > > Just thought you'd be interested... I agree. I never have found very convincing the argument "Don't create a group until there are many articles about that subject in another group". -- Bill Sebok Princeton University, Astrophysics {allegra,akgua,burl,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,noao,princeton,vax135}!astrovax!wls