lacsap@plethora.media.mit.edu (Pascal Chesnais) (05/13/91)
( please do NOT post anything pertaining to this discussion in this group, all FOLLOW-UPS are should be in NEWS.GROUPS!!! ) **** REQUEST FOR DISCUSSION ON THE SPLITTING OF COMP.SYS.NEXT **** There have been numerous complaints that the volume in comp.sys.next has exceeded reasonable levels. It has been suggested that splitting the group would remedy the situation. The number of postings suggests that it is time to discuss the matter. A number of regular readers of comp.sys.next have spent last week drafting an initial proposal for a split. Our intent was to provide the frame work in which this discussion for a split can occur. The first part deals with the red-tape of such a discussion. The second deals with the motivation, and a draft proposal. The third part is a presentation of dissenting point of views. Our hope is that with such a format we can present an objective argument to the readers of comp.sys.next such that when a vote comes up readers have heard all the arguments. Our recommendation to those who wish to post on the subject is that they limit their comments to new ideas and suggestions, rather than "me too!" type postings or rehashing of ideas that have already been presented. People do listen to what is said and take it into consideration when formulating their opinions on the subject. Again all follow-ups to this discussion must occur in news.groups and NOT comp.sys.next! For those of you who are not familiar with the guidelines of splitting a newsgroup we suggest that you read news.announce.newusers, or get a copy of How_to_Create_a_New_Newsgroup from plethora.media.mit.edu (18.85.1.50) in pub/next/FAQ. In drafting our proposal our intent was not to create a million subgroups all with very little traffic. However, we wanted the naming to be open ended enough not to preclude an orderly growth. Each group will have a specific charter. The initial proposal is to create ONLY FOUR NEW GROUPS AT THIS TIME: announce (moderated) The purpose of this group would be to present readers with announcements that are specific to the NeXT machine. This includes availability of sources, announcements from next and third party suppliers, bug-reports, new user information... This list optimally should be moderated to prevent random postings to this subgroup. It is expected that most current comp.sys.next would subscribe to this "noise free" list. sysadmin This group will focus its attention to the system administrative aspect of a NeXT machines. developer This group will be devoted to issues relating to programming on the NeXT. IB, C++, Objective-C, ... Porting of software... This could later be divided into more specific interests OS/graphics/... This group is _not_ a "registered developers only forum", but rather development discussions. discussion It was pointed out that short lived special discussions had no place to migrate to (CISC vs RISC, X vs DPS....) This group would be where follow up discussions would occur. For this to work it is important that posters include a followup-to: field in their posts to direct discussions here when they know the issue will probably be long winded. The comp.sys.next will remain as the focus for initiating new discussions about the next that immediately do not fall into any of the above categories, or requires the attention of most of the comp.sys.next population. It was proposed that a separate subgroup be created for music, graphics and hardware. Our intent was to minimize the number of subgroups created at the initial split, we recommend strongly against creating these specialized groups at this time. The above reflects discussion among a group of 30 comp.sys.next readers over a period of week. Not all were in favor of the split, in fact there are those who are quite against a split. It is important in a discussion to listen to the concerns of the people against the split. Try to understand the points they are making. Here are some comments/concerns as arguments against a split: - - volume not that great in the first place A 100 messages a day is not all that great, many other groups have much more volume and can be easily followed. A good news reader helps deal with the volume by filtering out discussions that are not important to the reader by subject or even author. News readers, like NewsGrazer, can sort all the news by subject, making it easy to read news. - - people who are calling for the split are not regular c.s.n. readers Calls for splits are from new users who are overwhelmed by the initial startup volume with the group. - - novice loses Having only one group assures that the gurus and novice users are communicating. Splitting c.s.n. into many subgroups may cause gurus to read only specific groups and to miss many of the novice user's concerns. - - cross-posting Although cross posting usually does not add to volume of news on disk, it does add to the volume of news that a user has to read. Most newsreaders do not understand that a news item has been read in another newsgroup. Splitting c.s.n into too many groups would result in readers not knowing which newsgroup to post and instead would cross-post to many. - - volume reduction better achieved through education. Much of the volume on c.s.n. could be reduced by educating the readers. For example, many readers post "me too!" type responses that add nothing to the discussion... Concise messages that add new information to discussions are generally the best postings. Volume could be best reduced if people replied *by mail* to a poster who asks a question, and let the poster of the question summarize the answers. Also it is important not to cross-post (look at what happens when you cross post to comp.sys.amiga.advocacy!). other comments not specifically against the splitting of the group: - - special subgroup for music Is needed since this is one unique aspect of the NeXT machine that gets much neglected. Having a special sub group would focus discussions on this topic, and promote development. In considering splitting the group, it is important to remember that this special interest group needs attention. - - graphics subgroup Is not really needed since it is already addressed in comp.graphics and comp.language.postscript. Any questions relating to the NeXT programming environment is probably best addressed in the developer subgroup. If the volume of postings really grow then we can consider splitting the developer -- Pascal Chesnais, Research Specialist, Electronic Publishing Group Media Laboratory, E15-351, 20 Ames Street, Cambridge, Ma, 02139 (617) 253-0311 email: lacsap@plethora.media.mit.edu (NeXT)