xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (11/27/90)
About 75 votes have been received in the first dozen or so hours, and a
surprising number of them are mixed ballots, despite my plea for a
straight yes or straight no vote.
Just a note on the actual effect of voting against a particular group.
The traffic you don't like won't go away, because there is effectively
no mechanism for shutting it off.
Instead, if the groups designed to isolate it are voted down, it will
just show up in groups where you don't want to read it. This isn't a
vote about whether emulation or advocacy or used computer for sale or
newbie coming up to speed articles are valuable, it is a vote about
whether you want them mixed in with stuff you really want to read in
other Amiga newsgroups, or want them set off where they are easier to
avoid, as was mostly done with games articles.
/// It's Amiga
/// for me: why
Kent, the man from xanth. \\\/// settle for
<xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us> \XX/ anything less?
--
Convener, ongoing comp.sys.amiga grand reorganization.xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (11/28/90)
Note that this discussion should be going on in news.groups; I have consistently provided a followup line to that group, please respect it. Radagast@cup.portal.com (sullivan - segall) writes in comp.sys.amiga: [...] >Also groups like c.s.a.advocacy seem to me to be doomed to failure. In >this case you are not trying to contain a subject, but a behaviour. The >behaviour is persistent and will come out in posts from the same user >regardless of the locale. The only way to stop advocacy postings from >appearing in c.s.a.misc is by getting all of the advocacy users to >unsubscribe to the group. Well, we can absolutely _guarantee_ the advocacy postings will continue to permeate the other groups if we _don't_ provide them an alternate home. I would be amazed indeed if peer pressure were unable to emulate the success of alt.flame in diverting unwelcome postings from other groups. >Other proposed groups are so nebulous in name that the poster would have >to reference the group charter to figure out what the group is for. >As an example c.s.a.marketing is worthless although I might vote in a >c.s.a.forsale group. (Which would undoubtably contain both wanted and >for-sale posts.) To me 'marketing' means marketing the amiga, as in >"How can we promote the amiga." Whatever its stated charter it will >always suffer from being misnamed. I can't support that kind of a group. Evidently you feel quite qualified to comment on the subjects without bothering to read the some 700Kbytes of postings carefully explaining the issues. There is no "c.s.a.marketing" group proposed; no one ever even suggested such a name, for just the reasons you cite. >To everyone: Whatever Kent might say, I think it is our responsibility > not to clutter the network with newsgroups. If you see a need for a > group, then it is appropriate. If you do not see a need, then vote > against it. If you don't participate in any of the discussions that > would appear in that group then abstain. I don't really think it is > concientious to mass vote in 14 new groups without having a clear idea > of why each one is needed. As documented by another poster, comp.sys.amiga carries 1.5 times as many articles as the next busiest group on the net. The overwhelming burden this places on many news subscribers, the failure modes this is eliciting in news software, the extreme difficulties this causes to email participants in the newsgroup, have all been documented here ad nauseum. There have been postings enough to create a large trilogy explaining and discussing why each group is needed. Various posters have analyzed and documented the traffic appropriate to each group. It is hard to imagine what more could be done to satisfy those who simply refuse to get the point. When and if the proposed newsgroups are created, the comp.sys.amiga news heirarchy will be about the size of the mac or ibm-pc greater heirarchies; there is nothing surprising about ending up with 16 newsgroups for the busiest single interest news heirarchy on the net, except that it has taken us so long to get there. The problems were recognized four years ago, and have been discussed at a low level ever since. It would be a shame to miss this opportunity to set things right, and have to wait another four years to find someone in the unique (unemployed and with net access and the time and interest and experience to take on the task) position I occupy before the job could be taken up again. I urge all participants who feel overwhelmed by the current volume of comp.sys.amiga to vote "Yes" for _all_ the proposed groups, whether you personally would ever read any particular one of them or not, just because that number of groups is needed to divide the existing traffic into manageable subsets. I've noted before, the purpose of the partition is to provide groups you _don't_ read, so that your newsreading burden will be less. You should be most aggressive about supporting the groups you most want _not_ to read, as their traffic will otherwise continue to pervade the groups you do read. I also request those to whom this group is easy to read, because of fast displays, intelligent software, and copious free time, to exercise the good citizenship of considering your less fortunate fellow readers, and vote for the partition to help others even if you don't require it yourself. You lose nothing by having the articles partitioned out, you can still read them all if you so choose; they will just be better organized. I comment for the record that four of the groups are marginally in trouble, and they are the ones for the traffic most folks want to avoid seeing. Please take the time to locate the ballot in news.announce.newusers, and send a vote to the indicated address per the instructions. As of an hour or so ago, last time I was logged into the vote receiving account, there had already been 259 votes received. My thanks to all the voters, even those not supporting all (or any) of the proposed groups, for participating. /// It's Amiga /// for me: why Kent, the man from xanth. \\\/// settle for <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us> \XX/ anything less? -- Convener, ongoing comp.sys.amiga grand reorganization.