toml@oliveb.UUCP (Dave Long) (12/29/83)
The network news has grown a lot since the structure was thought up, and
while we may not need a new structure now, soon the situation will warrant it.
The network news was an improvement over using mail(1), but now with all the
users and ideas being exchanged, it is beginning to outgrow itself.
What I propose is that we should start considering a better structure for
the news, so we will have an idea ready if we ever do need a new structure.
What follows is a description of a mythical 'Othernews', which I propose as an
alternate structure. I don't know how hard it would be to implement, but take
a look at it, and if you feel you like another structure, by all means post it.
OTHERNEWS
Othernews is based on a loose tree structure. Each time a new discussion
comes up, an appropriate sub-branch is created for it, and when it ends, it
disappears. Discussions are not limited to the number of branches that they
can be a sub-branch of, so there are no 'split' dicussions like there are in
the standard network news.
The othernews interface is designed for handling this. There are two
modes for reading the news. In the first mode, the tree-scanning one, the user
is allowed to move about the tree, and whenever he hits a branch, a list of
discussions going on it its sub-branches is displayed. This way users only read
the discussions that they want to read. The second, or reading mode, is be
based on mail(1). The user is shown a list of tthe titles of the articles in
that branch, and then reads only the ones that he is interested in.
When someone posts something to othernews, he is prompted for the branch-
list, and if it is an existing branch, then the article is posted to that
branch. Otherwise, a new sub-branch is formed, and the person is prompted for a
title to that discussion, which all of the parents and up of that branch are
given, so they can add the discussion name and path onto their discussion list.
When the discussion stops, the branch disappears, and if the parent has no other
sub-branches, the parent also disappears, and so on up, so only active branches
are present at any time.
Thanks for reading this!
Dave Long
{ucbvax,decvax}!decwrl!ios!oliveb!tomljeff@heurikon.UUCP (12/30/83)
"Othernews" sounds nice, but I see this as a potential problem:
I assume that by "when a discussion ends" you mean when 'expire'
has removed all the articles in that (sub)group. If that were
the method used, then how would someone know what the "proper"
name for a group would be when restarting a discussion?
Wouldn't it be likely that you'd get people restarting an old
discussion under a variety of group names, creating a sort of
group soup?
Possible solution: A discussion only "ends" after "x" months of
no activity. However "end" is determined, there would still need to
be some control or "standard" to follow when creating group names.
--
Jeffrey Mattox, Heurikon Corp, Madison, WI
{harpo, hao, philabs}!seismo!uwvax!heurikon!jeffwombat@uicsl.UUCP (01/04/84)
#R:oliveb:-24200:uicsl:8200003:000:203 uicsl!wombat Jan 3 14:54:00 1984 This sort of thing (othernews) is already running with the NOTES program. Each notesfile has base notes grouped with all the responses to each note. Get a copy of NOTES from uiucdcs!essick. Wombat
andree@uokvax.UUCP (01/06/84)
#R:oliveb:-24200:uokvax:9300013:000:715 uokvax!andree Jan 4 21:36:00 1984 No, OTHERNEWS is not QUITE notes. Notes has the syntax: note :== <message> <response-list> response-list :== <response> <response-list> | <null> response :== <message> Whereas othernews would be (at least, this is the impression I got): topic :== <message> <response-list> response-list :== <topic> <response-list> | <null> This is what I thought notes was when I first looked at it. I was dissapointed. The other difference is that notes still maintains the newsgroups, whereas with othernews, these would apparently be subsumed into topics. I'm still considering othernews as a replacement for notes. I like the idea a lot better, but I'm not sure how it would work in the UUCPNet environment. <mike
kolstad@parsec.UUCP (01/09/84)
#R:oliveb:-24200:parsec:39500002:000:397 parsec!kolstad Jan 8 16:40:00 1984 The "othernews" scheme was tried on Plato many years ago. It failed because people could not handle parsing through all the branches of a tree to see an entire discussion before they responded. In the end, no one was reading anything. The "list of lists" Plato notesfile philosophy seems superior in the end. You may have to do the experiment again, however, to convince yourself. Rk
johnc@dartvax.UUCP (John Cabell) (01/11/84)
About the new structure of READNEWS:
a) I think the thing we talked about a while ago, having
an (O)pinion option for just replying yes or no to a
question would be something to try to add to this new
system.
b) Would it be easier to have a person just read along the
bottom/outside edge of the tree? then they wouldn't
have to leaf (excuse the pun) through all the branches
just to get to an article they wanted to read.
c) using (B) as a system, a person, when submitting an
article, could be asked which main branch to put the
article in, then whic sub-branch, then which sub-sub-
branch, until it got to the right layer to post the
article in. This would make it much easier to post
something.
d) just as an aside, the (r) option would still be very
useful.
--
Unix path: ...!decvax!dartvax!johnc
Universal id: 50
USnail: 4 Ridge rd., Hanover, NH 037550248goutal@decvax.UUCP (Kenneth G. "Kenn" Goutal) (01/11/84)
OTHERNEWS sounds very much like the Communitree software used by various dial-up bulletin boards, usually on Apples. I like those very much, and have often thot that if I ever wrote a news system, I would pattern it after them. So, I would favour Othernews. -- Kenn