Physics:piner (08/09/82)
The question of the usefulness of a net.micro digest has come
up on the net. The reaction so far has been mixed. Indeed my
own feelings on the subject are mixed. I really don't care.
The reason for this note is more of a counter proposal. I assume
that there is someone out there crazy enough to be a digest
moderator. I have a better idea for a way to use your time.
We all see request for information come over the net on a
regular basis. Mostly the responses are mailed to the person who
asked for the information. I would like to propose expanding this
a bit. Many of us must buy equipment from time to time. Ditto for
software. What I would really like to see someone do, is keep a
record, or better yet, and INDEXED record of responses to the
information request. Then when anyone on the net ask a question
about a piece of hardware or software he could get a history of
answers from the moderator, plus the new ones generated by his
question. I think the system could work like this.
1) A request for information on hardware or software goes out
on net.micro just like now.
2) Responses are sent to the moderator who passes them on to the person who
made the request. The moderator adds to those anything already on
file about the hardware or software.
3) The moderator then indexes the new information
and adds it to the data base.
In addition, the data base could be posted to net.sources every six months
or so. Then folks could browse the data on their local machine. There
would have to be an outline of format for responses. An example:
responses should be in three parts, 1:pros, 2:cons, 3:overall rating.
This is just a general idea and is subject to refinement, anyone else
have ideas along these lines?
Richard Piner
P.S.
To those folks who sent me mail from ARPAnet. I am having trouble
returning your mail. I am still trying, but may not be able to mail to
ARPA. If you want to be sure of hearing from me, send an address
where you can be reached by the U.S. Snail. Thanks.DEVON@Mit-Mc@sri-unix (08/10/82)
From: Devon S McCullough <DEVON@Mit-Mc> By the way, I suggested the same thing a while back & got several nasty replies saying everything was hunky-dory with INFO-MICRO and don't bother us with "maintenance" type messages.