fred@umcp-cs.UUCP (11/09/83)
This is just a random thought, but I think it's worth discussing. I propose an alternate policy on when to form a new newsgroup. Suppose we either create a new newsgroup called ``net.temp'', or use the existing ``net.misc'' for this purpose. Whenever a discussion in an existing newsgroup spins off some sub-topic, and all the non-participants in the new discussion start flaming about their newsgroup being cluttered with articles about <whatnot>, we could create a temporary newsgroup under ``net.temp.<whatnot>''. The criteria for the creation of the temporary newsgroup could be a simple: three or more persons at different sites are in favor of it. It would be assumed that the new newsgroup would be deleted as soon as the discussion died out; say: no articles submitted for a week. If the discussion is still going strong after a month, this could be taken as justification for the creation of the permanent newsgroup ``net.<whatnot>''. This would 1) provide a home for transient discussions, and 2) allow for a more formal standard for deciding when to create a new newsgroup, as opposed to the current ``Well, there SEEMS to be enough interest.'' method. Comments? Flames? Fred Blonder harpo!seismo!umcp-cs!fred
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (11/10/83)
It will never work. People will blindly followup the articles in the original newsgroup, instead of moving to the new newsgroup like they are asked to. I have seen big flaming discussions take place in 2 or 3 newsgroups at the same time, and killing off one of them (to move to the other) is nearly impossible. Look at the handgun debate, which started in net.general, moved to net.followup and net.flame, and in spite of several attempts to get it ALL in net.flame, stayed in both groups for months. (It finally seems to have all moved to net.flame, but it took about 3 months. Most discussions don't last that long.) Mark
chuqui@cae780.UUCP (11/11/83)
There are a few problems with Fred's suggestions that I can think of
offhand. The main one is that it seems that once a topic is created, it
never seems to go away (like my old peeve net.wobegon that actually seems
to be getting some use occasionally). Also, I don't know about you but I
don't let the net delete topics out of my system. If we are constantly
creating and deleting topics, what are you going to do to the poor net
managers?
Two other points:
Traditionally the best way to kill off an unwelcome subject is to move
it to a different topic. This does a few things: It makes the subject
unavailable to those that don't read that topic (not everyone on the
net reads every topic...), it splits those people in the subject into
two groups (those that want to move and those that don't), and it means
that you end up with two disjoint conversations on the same subject
because of the split and because of net lag. A lot of the time people
simply post to both topics so that their messages don't get lost.
Also, when you consider the lack of success that we have had changing
names of topics in the past (i.e. net.trivia and net.games.trivia) I
don't think that the net.temp.foo to net.foo will work. It's another
one of those things that you just can't get everybody up to date on
to do, it seems.
When 2.11 comes out with subject sorting within topics, won't this become a
rather moot point? I agree that we need better control of topic creation,
but controlling it by creating large numbers of them doesn't help much...
--
From the dungeons of the warlock: amd70!cae780!chuqui
Chuqui the Plaid *pif*