mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (06/19/84)
At the Usenet BOF, the proposal was made to get rid of net.general.
The following reasons came up:
(1) The volume of junk on net.general has gotten out of hand lately.
There is no way to control it, and people get offended when it
is pointed out that their article does not belong on net.general.
(2) A show of hands indicated that almost everyone present had already
unsubscribed. Thus, it isn't a very good way to reach lots of people.
(3) net.announce would take the traffic that really belonged in net.general.
The traffic that didn't would belong on some other appropriate newsgroup.
People choosing net.general because they couldn't think of a better
newsgroup would be forced to think of a better newsgroup - net.general
was never appropriate for such traffic.
There were, amazingly enough, no serious objections to removing net.general.
However, there was a great deal of concern that somebody who was unable to
attend the BOF might have an objection. For this reason, I want to give
everybody who has an opinion a chance to speak. If the majority of the
net wants it to go, it will go.
We can either keep net.followup for followup discussions to net.general,
or nuke it as well, depending on the sentiment of the net.
Followup discussion to net.news.group, please. I have put headers on this
article to cause followups to go to net.news.group automatically if you
run 2.10 or later.
Mark Hortonwmartin@brl-tgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (06/19/84)
1. Removing net.general will simply result in anyone posting something which does not obviously fit in a topic-oriented newsgroup using net.misc (hopefully). So it makes little difference if net.general exists or not. 2. I am surprised that anyone would unsubscribe from net.general, no matter what the mixture of inappropriate messages might be. It still isn't a high-traffic group, like net.music or net.unix, so there isn't that much of a load on anyone to scan it. To those at the BOF that had unsubscribed: did you do this for a philosophical reason, or was reading net.general really an imposition on you? 3. To Mark -- post instructions for all of us to use so we, too, can put the stuff in our postings that you put in your item (base to this followup), which moved the followups from net.announce to net.news.group. It sounds quite useful, and should be general knowledge. Will
martin@noscvax.UUCP (06/19/84)
I vote to keep net.general. I don't read net.followup, so I don't care what you do with that. If net.general were eliminated, the amount of junk in net.news.group would expand exponentially, because people with "new subjects" who now post to net.general would start demanding their own special groups. However, I would modify the software to disallow multiple newsgroups if one of the groups was net.general. If you have somewhere else to put it, don't put it in net.general. In fact, why not completely remove the ability to post to multiple groups? I(d like to let my yes be yes, and my no be no; it's a pain rejecting the same article four times. Doug Martin martin@nosc
bradley@godot.UUCP (Bradley C. Kuszmaul) (06/19/84)
Kill net.general
--
{decvax!cca,ihnp4!mit-eddie,allegra!ias}!godot!bradley,
"godot!bradley@mit-eddie"@MIT-XX.ARPAdsn@umcp-cs.UUCP (06/19/84)
I unsubscribed to net.general LONG ago. The only reservation I have about
getting rid of it is whether doing so will increase the volume of junk mail
on the newsgroups I still DO subscribe to!
--
Dana S. Nau
CSNet: dsn@umcp-cs ARPA: dsn@maryland
UUCP: {seismo,allegra,brl-bmd}!umcp-cs!dsnbees@drutx.UUCP (06/20/84)
I agree with getting rid of net.general and net.followup . I do not subscribe, and don't know anyone who does. There isn't time enough in one day to wade through all that kaka! Having no default place for things might cause people to study the situation, or learn about usenet before posting things. Maybe net.misc should go away, too? Ray Davis [ Maybe net.flame should be sent to /dev/null instead of uucp? :-) ]
woods@hao.UUCP (Greg Woods) (06/20/84)
I agree wholeheartedly with Mark Horton. I'm sick of reading about cars for
sale in New Jersey in net.general . The group has become totally useless.
Let's get rid of net.general and net.followup too. We can use a moderated
group (like net.announce) to post things that are *truly* of general
interest. The articles that the poster can't figure out where to put them
belong in net.misc, that is what it is for.
BTW, it might help if it was more widely publicized how one goes about posting
something to net.announce . I'm a fairly heavy net (ab)user, and I don't
even know how.
--Greg
--
{ucbvax!hplabs | allegra!nbires | decvax!stcvax | harpo!seismo | ihnp4!stcvax}
!hao!woods
"... brave the storm to come, for it surely looks like rain"
NUKE NET.GENERAL!!!kiessig@idi.UUCP (Rick Kiessig) (06/20/84)
I agree. Nuke both net.general and net.followup. I know
few people who still read it, and nearly every article posted isn't
appropriate for "general" consumption, anyway.
net.announce is a moderated group, so there is much less
chance of it getting trashed, as people have suggested.
--
Rick Kiessig
{decvax, ucbvax}!sun!idi!kiessig
{akgua, allegra, amd70, burl, cbosgd, dual, harpo, ihnp4}!idi!kiessig
Phone: 408-996-2399minow@decvax.UUCP (Martin Minow) (06/20/84)
I'd suggest biting the bullet and keeping it. Removing it (a more pleasant word than "nuke") wouldn't cut the volume of junk -- it would just move into net.unix-wizards and/or other "useful" groups. Unfortunately, the only solution to the volume of junk requires changing the nature of USENET from a self-policed anarchy to a moderated, or semi-moderated set of discussion groups. (The Arpanet Human-nets and SF-Lovers are examples of moderated groups.) I have a gut feel that if system administrators can "moderate" submissions from their sites (postnews mails the submission to root which "releases" it further), we'll lose a valuable exchange of opinions and ideas -- and come to regret that loss. (Replies by mail, please -- I don't subscribe to net.news.group.) Martin Minow decvax!minow
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (06/20/84)
Several people apparently didn't realize that net.announce is a special name to inews. 2.10 and later won't accept or forward a message that isn't appropriately marked by the moderator. Since the backbone sites all run 2.10.1 or later, a message posted by ordinary means to net.announce won't get very far, even if it's posted on a machine running an old netnews or notesfiles. net.announce is moderated, so that only appropriate (in the opinion of the moderator) postings are let through. The rest are usually redirected to a more appropriate newsgroup. To those wondering how followups were directed to net.news.group, you could either look at the article (/usr/spool/news/net/announce/something) or read rfc850 (doc/standard in the B news distribution) to see what extra header does this. In this case, it's Followup-To. There are others, such as Reply-To, that are useful. You can just add them in while in the editor. Mark
brian@sdccsu3.UUCP (Brian Kantor) (06/20/84)
x It seems to me that the controversy regarding net.general is due in a large part to the misconception of many users as to its purpose. It is easy (in retrospect) to see that the name 'general' can easily be interpreted in at least two ways: 'general interest' and 'general subject matter'. Specifically, that people misunderstand the title 'general' is insufficient reason for deleting the newsgroup; something more in the way of justification is needed. Net.misc was created for the express purpose of taking articles that didn't really have a home anywhere else, but when it is NOT INTUITIVELY OBVIOUS that one should use net.misc instead of net.general then there is a question as to the appropriateness of the title vs its 'intended' usage. Yes, there are netiquette articles explaining what newsgroups to use, when not to use net.general, when to use net.misc, etc. As any of you who have to deal with users in the real world know, few users read the instructions, fewer still understand them, and only a small number actually obey them. In a network as undisciplined as this one, it is surprising that net.general works as well as it does. No, I'm not fond of reading lots of messages that don't apply to me in any way. But I don't believe that the situation will change by simply nuking net.general. We must FIRST devise a substitute, intuitively obvious to the greatest number of people, that is a newsgroup expressly for those items of very widespread interest. After that is established, net.general can be nuked and net.misc will take its rightful place as the catchall newsgroup. I don't have a suggestion for the title of the newsgroup. Or rather, I have several, none of which is satisfactory. Lets discuss it here and see what we can come up with? -- -Brian Kantor, UC San Diego ihnp4 \ Kantor@Nosc decvax \ akgua ----- sdcsvax ----- brian dcdwest/ ucbvax/
dlb@stc70.UUCP (David Black) (06/20/84)
I know that there are many serious people out there who don't want to waste their time on net.general but I would ask you to unsubscribe rather than to nuke it. I enjoy its hodge-podge of messages. It and net.followup often have discussions on topics that are of general interest/concern that would be lost to many if they were posted to more "appropriate" news groups. An example is the discussion of the case of unc!tim. This was of concern to many, but would have been lost in net.legal or any of the other specialized news groups. We can use at least one news group to function as a newspaper rather than a special-interest publication. It seems that this is a rather interesting case of a newsgroup being used for what many seem to think is a "useful" purpose rather than its "intended" purpose. It is being used, those who don't like its current use should use one of the other groups for their special purposes, as some have proposed. So leave it, let it die from lack of use rather than misuse (or what might be better called "its new use"). Send flames to net.general :-) David Black
bernerus@chalmers.UUCP (Christer Bernerus) (06/20/84)
Don't just remove net.general, remove net.all! Then create world.all, us(a).all, na.all as needed. To be consistent, eunet.all should be named eur[ope].all and swnet.all should be named swe(den).all or perhaps sve(rige).all. Chris
steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton) (06/20/84)
I fully agree with getting rid of net.general. While we're at it, how about creating a USA subnet, usa.* (or North America) to tempt USA/NA netters to keep local stuff local. To quote from an article on the European subnet today, that was in reply to a French netter saying there was a French subnet: >That is (or at least should be!) common practice in all European >countries. Wish it were the same in the USA... I know that there is the Distribution: feature to postnews, but where is the evidence that it is used? Just look at all those lifts offered/wanted that appear(ed) in net.general!
zemon@felix.UUCP (06/20/84)
Yes! Nuke net.general *and* net.followup. Neither one contains
enough useful information to be worth reading.
Art Zemon
FileNet Corp.
...!{ucbvax, decvax}!trwrb!felix!zemonguy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (06/21/84)
> I vote to keep net.general. I don't read net.followup, so I > don't care what you do with that. > If net.general were eliminated, the amount of junk in net.news.group would > expand exponentially, because people with > "new subjects" who now post to net.general would start demanding their > own special groups. But that's not what net.general is for! That's what net.MISC is for. net.general was intended to be a group for ONLY those important announcements that everyone should read. However, it's gotten so cluttered with inappropriate postings that some people have to unsubscribe from it, which defeats its whole purpose. > In fact, why not completely remove the ability to post to multiple groups? > I(d like to let my yes be yes, and my no be no; it's a pain > rejecting the same article four times. Then get your software fixed, or yell at sites whose news implementations split multiple postings into several postings. Correct news implementations (like the "vnews" running here) will only show such a posting once. Don't blame the people who post to multiple groups for the inadequacies of some versions of the news software. There is a good reason for posting to multiple groups - you may have an article which should be seen by all those groups, and there's no one group which all the proper potential audience subscribes to. Furthermore, followups to such articles are also posted to the same groups, so one has to make a conscious effort not to post the followup to all those groups. And if one makes such a decision, one takes the risk of not letting some of the readers of the original article read the followup(s). Guy Harris {seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy
guy@rlgvax.UUCP (Guy Harris) (06/21/84)
> However, don't nuke net.followup - what is needed here is for people to be > encouraged to move discussions from the group that they started in to > net.followup. Remember the software piracy debate? That is just the sort of > thing that net.followup is suitable for (and I wish that someone would move > the BBS debate there too!). The trouble is that net.followup is a "generic" followup group. What criterion should be applied for moving a discussion out of a specific group to a generic group? If the BBS debate doesn't fit into the confines of a specific group, it should perhaps be moved to net.misc, but not net.followup. If net.general goes, the *reason d'etre* of net.followup goes with it. The real answer to a lot of the problems cited with news is the inability to group articles into discussions and to unsubscribe from a discussion; I would have unsubscribed from the BBS debate long ago if I had that capability. 2.11 will provide such grouping, and perhaps the ability to unsubscribe. I think the newsgroup mechanism is being strained far past its ability to sort discussions, and some discussion grouping facility is needed. Guy Harris {seismo,ihnp4,allegra}!rlgvax!guy
josh@joshua.UUCP (Joshua Gordon) (06/21/84)
NUKE IT!
--
from the blithering idioms of josh gordon
{ihnp4,ucbvax,cbosgd,decwrl,amd70,fortune,zehntel}!dual!joshua!joshwm@tekchips.UUCP (Wm Leler) (06/21/84)
I think there is some confusion about net.announce being a moderated group because it should be called mod.announce. I vote to nuke net.general and net.followup. Then change the name of net.announce to mod.announce. Since Mark is the only person who can post to net.announce, this should not cause any of the typical problems of people posting to the old group. To answer some other concerns -- mod.announce could not become a trashcan (unless Mark goes crazy). mod.announce would become better used once net.general goes away. Oh, and is there any way to change the software so any postings to net.general are either disallowed or mailed to Mark, or something like that? Wm Leler
scw@cepu.UUCP (06/22/84)
NO!NO!NO! don't nuke net.general and net.followup, nuke net.misc!
Let net.announce take over the old function of net.general. Let
net.general be the starting point for topics which will then (assuming
the readnews wroks correctly) be followuped in net.followup.
--
Stephen C. Woods (VA Wadsworth Med Ctr./UCLA Dept. of Neurology)
uucp: { {ihnp4, uiucdcs}!bradley, hao, trwrb, sdcsvax!bmcg}!cepu!scw
ARPA: cepu!scw@ucla-cs location: N 34 06'37" W 118 25'43"yba@mit-athena.ARPA (Mark H Levine) (06/23/84)
Stephen has made the most intelligent comment on this matter I have yet seen. In elegance and functionality it is superior to the other alternatives. I must second his opinion: if you must nuke something, let it be net.misc and let the abusers carry on unaware.... Don't change the game, just the rules. Shai Dorsai! -- yba%mit-heracles@mit-mc.ARPA UUCP: decvax!mit-athena!yba
furuta@uw-june (Richard Furuta) (06/23/84)
After reading the recent messages about getting rid of net.general, I think I would vote for KEEPING net.general but changing its charter. The recent argument that the name implies it is for general purpose discussions is persuasive. Change the charter so that it is used for that purpose and also change the references to its importance (about how everyone needs to read it) to refer to net.announce instead. An alternative would be to remove net.misc! --Rick ...decvax!uw-beaver!uw-june!furuta (uucp) ...ihnp4!uw-beaver!uw-june!furuta or Furuta@Washington (ARPAnet)
kiessig@idi.UUCP (06/23/84)
Perhaps as an interim solution, we could take the
following approach:
Have someone volunteer (I will if no one else wants the
job [how about you, Mark?]) to sift through articles in
net.general, and re-post the ones of general interest to
net.announce. In other words, net.announce would be a moderated
version of net.general. People posting to net.general would be
told to send mail to the moderator instead, or that their
article should instead have gone to net.misc.
net.followup could be left around for a while, eventually
to be nuked and replaced by net.misc - after the conversation
level dies down.
I know this isn't a cure-all. But at least it would
relieve most of us from having to wade through the junk in
net.general for the occasional interesting article.
--
Rick Kiessig
{decvax, ucbvax}!sun!idi!kiessig
{akgua, allegra, amd70, burl, cbosgd, dual, harpo, ihnp4}!idi!kiessig
Phone: 408-996-2399chongo@nsc.UUCP (Landon C. Noll) (06/24/84)
>NO!NO!NO! don't nuke net.general and net.followup, nuke net.misc!
all 3 ideas seem good to me...
chongo <UNIX(*) is a concept, nothing more or less> /\**/\
(*)
UNIX is a trademark of AT&T (i wish i had a v8!)zben@umcp-cs.UUCP (06/25/84)
Seems to me the real problem is software that either prompts the user with the net.general newsgroup or supplies it as a default. If the software were changed to require the user to think (as suggested) we might not even have to nuke net.general (except as a side effect to make people change software :-). -- Ben Cranston ...seismo!umcp-cs!zben zben@umd2.ARPA
gurr@west44.UUCP (Dave Gurr) (06/26/84)
< force of habit .. > I agree - nuke it. If a general announcement of something which does not fit logically into any group has to be posted, post it in net.announce. However, don't nuke net.followup - what is needed here is for people to be encouraged to move discussions from the group that they started in to net.followup. Remember the software piracy debate? That is just the sort of thing that net.followup is suitable for (and I wish that someone would move the BBS debate there too!). Hey, chuq, notice I didn't use the word 'vote' at all ! (What's that? I just did? Sh$%$&*** :-) mcvax "You can't clean the \ toilet Neil, real students ukc!west44!gurr don't do that!" / vax135 Dave Gurr, Westfield College, Univ. of London, England.
wcs@ho95b.UUCP (59577) (06/27/84)
Summary: NUKE `EM!! Net.general was an unfortunate name; it can be interpreted as either net.everyone or as net.anything. New users always seem to assume the latter ($#%$#%). One decision that should be made is "How do we define USENET?". It used to be "Everyone who gets net.general"; is "Everyone who gets net.announce" a good substitute? -- Bill Stewart AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ ...!ihnp4!ho95b!wcs
sylvain@lvbull.UUCP (sylvain) (06/27/84)
OK, but where is the solution? Don't you think people will behave with net.announce the same way they with net.general? Don't you think that net.announce will be over-loaded with the same garbage as net.general was? One good thing would be that people have to realize that there is no need to duplicate articles in many newsgroups as it is the case now (especially here in Europe!!). Maybe a good solution would be to re-think the list of active newsgroups and to subdivide big ones in more specialized ones! But I know this is a great job to do!! ------ Sylvain Langlois BULL, Louveciennes FRANCE ----- ------ (.....mcvax!vmucnam!lvbull!sylvain) -----
pete@lvbull.UUCP (pete) (06/27/84)
I find the duplicate messages a bother also. Can readnews me modified to mark file read in all catigorities it is receieved under?
julian@deepthot.UUCP (Julian Davies) (06/27/84)
I'd be happy to get rid of net.general and net.followup.
There is another more radical change I'd really like to see.
I think increasing numbers of sites will wish NOT to take any
traffic for 'non-technical' newsgroups. I think of the net.rec,
net.jokes, net.singles, children, politics, religion, women, etc
etc. though these groups (some of them) carry very interesting
and potentially valuable traffic, organizations on tight budgets
cannot always justify the telephone bills.
At present, it is really difficult to arrange to take all
technical groups from a neighbouring site, and none of the others.
It requires a horrible control line.
I propose that the prefix "net" be bifurcated into two different
prefixes, to be chosen by someone, with semantics roughly
network-wide-technical-content and network-wide-nontechnical.
Perhaps the latter could be called netnt or something. Then by
having delivery of net.all but NOT netnt.all, we get the required
effect.
I know this will have a major dislocating effect, especially on
sites not using the latest software (which might permit automatic
renaming of groups?). I urge the net wizards and others to do
some planning for such a change-over. We don't get all thr groups
we"d like because we have to exclude others for budgetary reasons
and it is too complicated at present to get the effect desired.
Julian davies
{watmath|psddevl}!deepthot!julian
utzoo!uwo!juliangreggt@ncoast.UUCP (Gregg Thompson) (07/25/84)
I think getting rid of
net.general and net.followup is a
very radical change. If some one that
the net respects would mail the person
a pre-made message stating what the
newsgroup was meant for and that their
message should be place in another
newsgroup, I think you will see a
change to the better. If you can't
post to a newsgroup because it isn't
on the system then post it to net.misc
or something of that sort.
People push their chances to
the limit and see what happens. If
nothing happens then they will
continue until someone says stop.
Again someone well-known,
liked, and who people listen to should
be placed in this position.
Comments please...
--
Gregg Thompson
{ucbvax}!decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!greggt
{ucbvax}!decvax!cbosgd!aat!m-net!greggt
{ucbvax}!decvax!microsoft!trsvax!sneaky!greggt
{decvax}!ucbvax!dual!proper!greggt
{ucbvax}!decvax!vortex!ihnp4!wlcrjs!greggt