werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (06/06/83)
Yes, a news-group for non-wizards would be useful, as long as any questions have first been posted on local and regional groups, otherwise the net will be flooded. just like there are the groups: general, ut.general, austin.general, tx.general, etc., we need a UNIX-* (questions, hams, non-wizards, what-have-you) It would be most helpful for us all to become more experienced by having a forum for questions and answers, and techniques to get the machines to DWIM (do what I mean). Learning as you go, bits and pieces as needed at the moment seems to be more effective, than learning ahead at random, hoping to remember the needed details, and unless my experience is non-typical, most persons, having benefitted from a forum where they can voice their questions, will return the favor to next fellow who needs some help.
smk@linus.UUCP (Steven M. Kramer) (06/08/83)
Instead of unix-wizards, unix-neophytes, unix-a, unix-b, ... why not net.unix.wizards, net.unix.neophytes, net.unix.a, net.unix.b, ... ?
smh@mit-eddi.UUCP (Steven M. Haflich) (06/09/83)
I think all this discussion about a Unix neophytes group is somewhat missing the real problem. The Usenet is used for many kinds of messages, but a useful taxonomy is to divide items: 1) General broadcasts, either supplying or requesting information, but which the author really wants *everyone* on the net to see. 2) Requests for some simple information, a single reply to which will satisfy the original author. Clearly, requests for survey information (e.g. "Everybody tell me about your experience with United Frobulator tape punches, and I'll summarize to the net") want general distribution and are type (1). Other requests (e.g. "Does anybody know why my 4.1c United Frobulator device driver won't rewind past reflective markers?") are type (2) and can frequently be answer by wizards within a few net hops, unless the question is absurdly esoteric. The important point here is that, at least very often, the author KNOWS he will likely get an answer within a few hops, yet the query slowly trickles over about 500 net connections at great expense and wasting 5000 programmer's time. Unix-neophyte questions are the most concentrated source of such queries -- but clearly the problem is more general. I don't have a very good solution for the problem, alas. The only mechanism in place is the collection of local nets (e.g. ne.general) which effectively limit distribution. Alternatively, a `hop count limit' could be added to the news software, but we all know how hard it is to propagate such news system changes, and anyway, most users would not take the extra effort to specify such a distribution limit. Perhaps this aspect can be chewed around a little. At the very least, for areas with well-defined local nets, unix-neophyte or some such groupname could be translated into a local group (either ne.general, ne.wanted, or ne.unix-wizards, etc.), and we could see how it works? Steve Haflich, genrad!mit-eddie!smh
cfv@packet.UUCP (06/10/83)
Its beginning to look like we ARE going to need to split up unix-wizards into some managable form, simply because the volume is starting to overwhelm some people (the same can be seed for ne.micro, but that seems to be because a lot of people don't use the existing splits). I don't think net.unix-novice is a good idea, but perhaps splitting up unix wizards into something like this is: net.unix-wizards .help /* General help and request messages */ .kernel /* kernel stuff, since many don't have * to worry about it. */ I think if you put the kernel stuff in a place where the people who don't have to work with it don't need to see it, and if you put the generalize help and request (who has a driver for a foobar?) messages in another it will make life much more manageable. We might also want to consider setting up one for nroff/troff/ditroff and cc for this, and use net.unix-wizards for stuff that doesn't fit elsewhere. chuck ucbvax!amd70!packet!cfv
hal@cornell.UUCP (06/12/83)
Has anyone else noticed that a lot of the traffic in Unix-Wizards is also
posted to other groups like net.periphs or one of the net.bugs groups?
Since there seems to be a consensus that net.unix-wizards is getting out
of hand, and something should be done, I think this is a good time to
look at this. Perhaps if folks would refrain from copying articles to
net.unix.wizards when they are discussing bugs, micros, terminals,
or subjects that can be posted elsewhere, there would be a noticable
reduction in the amount of wizards traffic.
Then, of course, the news software might eventually recognize related
articles and make it possible to skip all articles on the same unwanted
topic.... (he said wishfully)
Hal Perkins uucp: {decvax|vax135|et.al...}!cornell!hal
arpa: hal@cornell