chguest@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Ugh) (08/02/89)
The following articles were culled from the ba.news.group and the ca.news.group newsgroups. These groups are where some of the sysadmins and newsadmins discuss the future of groups on the net. This may also be happening in other local control newsgroups. If you want to continue receiving this newsgroup then it might be in your intrest to take action and speak to your newsadmin or sysadmin. >From: csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst) The recently voted-on/created news.newusers.questions is, IMHO, the most perfect example of a topic that does *not* belong in a newsgroup that I have ever seen. It has become an instant cesspool of trivial questions followed by a flood of repetitive (and frequently wrong) answers. All those questions that we provided other channels for (news.announce.newusers, comp.archive, comp.mail, et al), or told people to go ask their local sysadm, are now flowing around the world. Anyone for net.anarchy? Forget the voting process; it's a silly exercise in futility. I plan to nuke this group here; anyone care to join me? <csg> >From: gam@uts.amdahl.com (Gordon Moffett) I just took a look at news.newusers.questions; Carl's right, what a mistake this was! Clearly a defect of the "democratic" process .... It's outta here, too. Gordon A. Moffett gam@uts.amdahl.com +1 408 746-8287 {ames,sun,uunet,decwrl}!amdahl!gam >From: jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) We news admin types get to accept our share of the blame. When you see a bunch of extremely basic questions from a new user, that user is innocent; the administrator is at fault for allowing a totally ignorant user to make a fool of himself in public. And then you get to see the "experienced" users answer questions about what K does in vnews by describing what K does in rn. The group could still be turned into something useful. Simply don't forward the group across organizational lines (add !news.newusers.questions to sys lines that go to sites outside your organization, and ask your newsfeeds to do the same). Then if a user at Enormous University has a question the question stays on the university's machines, ditto for companies. It's then possible to get net-wide informative articles onto the group by means of crossposting (for example, news.announce.newusers articles). Users at all sites can still ask their questions there, they simply aren't forwarded all over the net. -- Joe Buck jbuck@epimass.epi.com, uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck >From: epsilon@wet.UUCP (Eric P. Scott) No experiment is a complete failure--it can always serve as a bad example. "I told you so!" (I voted so...) We carry news.all as a matter of policy. We would, of course, honor a global rmgroup... -=EPS=-
jgreely@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (J Greely) (08/03/89)
In article <4546@eos.UUCP> chguest@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Ugh) writes: [a great deal, most of which I find amusing. The main thrust is that Ugh is offended by the fact that some people find this group pointless] >This may also be happening in other local control newsgroups. Counter-revolutionaries are everywhere! Load your children and hide your guns! >If you want to continue receiving this newsgroup then it might be in >your intrest to take action and speak to your newsadmin or sysadmin. The freedom to do something stupid is very American (no, not *your* article, Ugh, the ones under discussion). I presume this is why you gave this "Save the Whims" discussion a "usa" distribution. The complaints that you take exception to seem to me completely reasonable: the existence of n.n.q, transported worldwide, encourages the lazy solution to problems, namely, posting questions that can be answered more quickly by asking locally or reading a manual. In particular, quite a few of the questions posed so far show that the authors have never heard of news.announce.newusers. Judging from the traffic, the detractors are right. Quick examples: What is uunet? What is usenet (and is it a subset of vnews)? How do I cancel an article? Where are RFC's kept? How do I talk to someone across the net? What does :-) mean? What does IMHO mean? Why do people use disclaimers? What do the lines in .newsrc mean? How do I do <anything> in rn? How do I get my signature included automatically? Most of these questions are either posted in n.a.n, documented elsewhere, or quickly answerable by a local administrator. Judging from some of the replies these questions have gotten, they are *not* answerable by the average netter. The suggested tactic of simply not distributing n.n.q beyond organization boundaries is an excellent idea, and would help slow down the inevitable crunch of net.freshman questions that will hit *big* in the fall. Do *you* want people knowing that users at your site have no way to get simple questions answered locally? >>From: csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst) >>The recently voted-on/created news.newusers.questions is, IMHO, the most >>perfect example of a topic that does *not* belong in a newsgroup that I have >>ever seen. Bread and circuses, Carl... "If 100 people agree on the name, it is presumptively pretty good." "Right. And 5 million Elvis fans can't be wrong." -- Benson Margulies and David Bedno -- J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely)
" Maynard) (08/03/89)
The postings in ba.news.groups and ca.news.groups about how some admins
want to nuke news.newusers.questions disgust me.
They complain about "trivial" questions, forgetting completely that
these questions are not trivial to the users who ask them, and that
they, too, had questions that would seem trivial now once upon a
time...kind of like a parent who forgets that they, too, were once 14
years old.
To top it all off, they don't even take their objection to the whole net
via news.groups (where I've redirected this discussion), but rather keep
it among themselves.
I have complained about newsgroups that have passed by overwhelming
margins before, but have not nuked them on my site. The basis for the
regular net is that siteadmins (who, admittedly, have the right to
control what goes on on their machine) honor the results of net votes on
the premise of fairness: they expect others who dislike votes they
support to propagate their favorite groups. The regular net has worked
pretty well on that basis.
I hope that these arrogant siteadmins (who must not care about new
users) reconsider their unilateral decision to nuke a legitimate group;
failing that, I hope that other California systems take up the slack in
propagation.
--
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
uucp: uunet!nuchat! (eieio)| adequately be explained by stupidity.
{attctc,bellcore}!texbell!splut!jay +----------------------------------------
internet: jay@splut.conmicro.com | "He's T*d, Jim."-Richard "Bones" Sextonstevesc@microsoft.UUCP (Steve Schonberger) (08/04/89)
In article <56691@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> J Greely <jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes: >In particular, quite a few of the questions posed so far show that the >authors have never heard of news.announce.newusers. > > Judging from the traffic, the detractors are right. Quick examples: > What is uunet? > What is usenet (and is it a subset of vnews)? [...] >>>From: csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst) >>>The recently voted-on/created news.newusers.questions is, IMHO, the most >>>perfect example of a topic that does *not* belong in a newsgroup that I have >>>ever seen. One way to deal with the problem is to simply not answer questions from people who aren't on your site. On the other hand, it is possible that this newsgroup does serve a good purpose. That is, if all the questions that should be answered by one sort or another of RTFM answer (that's Read The F Manual, to avert the inevitable questions) end up here, maybe there won't be so many of them elsewhere on the net. Saving net readers the trouble of reading half of the RTFM type questions would more than make up for the cost of propogating the newsgroup. Of course, the problem with that idea is that it probably won't get rid of those questions from other newsgroups. But if it at least reduces it, some good is done. Additionally, there are some questions that really are worth asking here. When they come up, they should be enthusiastically answered, and probably also addressed in a future edition of news.announce.newusers. Steve Schonberger microsoft!stevesc@uunet.uu.net
mef@dalek.silvlis.com (Mary Ellen Foley) (08/05/89)
The arguments against having news.newusers.questions seem to fall into three categories: 1) the questions are too simple to be of interest 2) the questions should be answered locally by sysadmin or documentation. 3) the answers are repetitive and often incorrect. As a relative novice, I appreciate this newsgroup. I'm not asking to be spoonfed, but until I read this newsgroup I didn't even know that you COULD buy printed documentation about the network news. It is a bit irritating that these people want to cut off this newsgroup because THEY don't find the subject matter interesting. I may not find the ham radio info exchange, or the discussions of gun ownership interesting, but that doesn't mean I think they should be stopped. I'm sure that people could find out about solar panels by buying documentation, but I don't suggest that we nuke sci.energy as extraneous information. I've learned things from reading this news.newusers.questions that I haven't read about elsewhere, and I hope it stays around. As I recall, news.announce.newusers says to send your questions to any guru, and my reaction was "so how do I know who they are?". As for repetitive/incorrect information, the same can be said of any other group (read rec.arts.tv.uk recently? You want to talk REPETITIVE.) and incorrect answers are correctly promptly by others who know. I am one of VERY few people at my site who reads and posts, our sysadmin is a consultant who logs in remotely an hour a day, and doesn't have time for lots of news questions. We also have a VP who doesn't like having news around (waste of time and disk space, says he) and so I don't want to make waves. If there are enough consenting adults who want to ask questions and answer questions, why is this any less useful than sci.lang.japan or rec.autos.sport or soc.religion.christian or talk.politics.soviet or ...? mef -- "You can't fool all of the people all of the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country." (who said this? Was is Will & Ariel Durant?) WARNING: Opinions in posting are smaller than they appear.