Ghenis.pasa@XEROX.COM (07/28/87)
The recent meta-discussion on what to include in the Digest was rather similar to the one about whether to include the AI Expert code listings. At that time I made a proposal that may have drowned in the noise. I still think it would solve the filtering problem so here it goes: PROBLEM: You can't tell what is inside the digest until you start reading it. The title is non-descriptive. How does an AIList reader filter unwanted topics? If a reader has an unsophisticated mail reading channel, there is an irritating time cost to opening an unwanted 20,000 character message. This is even worse for folks who read their mail through a modem connection. Proposing the creation of a new list for each topic that generates a large mail volume is not only unrealistic but also unnecessary. SOLUTION: The moderator is already thoughtful enough to segregate topics so that each digest is fairly homogeneous. Now if only the "Subject:" line could read AIList V5 #183 - Symbol Grounding instead of AIList Digest V5 #183 then it would be easy to filter topics even with the crudest of mail programs, and our personal archives would also be much more descriptive at the table-of-contents level. I believe that this scheme would address the objections of folks who voted against continuing to distribute symbol grounding messages or source code listings. MODERATOR: Would this be a difficult change to implement? FELLOW READERS: Is this proposal missing the point? Is there anything else we could do to better prepare for the next large discussion? Should we move this discussion to the META-META-DISCUSSIONS list? :-) Pablo Ghenis Xerox Artificial Intelligence Systems Educational Services [This has been suggested several times, by several people, so I might as well give it a try. I am reminded, though, of a parody of Reader's Digest that condensed an entire Hemmingway novel to the word "Bang!". A good many digests will have to be tagged as "Msc.", including this one. I really don't see the advantage in the longer subject line, but perhaps that is because my mailer clips the subject at about 40 characters. The cost of examining the full Topics section is only about one page of data. (Are there really mailers out there that let you read the subject line without the cost of "pulling in" the entire digest?) What is really needed here is an intelligent mail-reading system. I'm sure that special digest-reading commands could -- but probably won't -- be added to any of our mailers. Even better would be an intelligent Information Lens system. Won't someone take this on as an AI project? -- KIL]