xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (09/02/90)
thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) >in <1990Aug29.132837.13649@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> writes: > So tell me, was it all worth the effort? Are there any sites that > actually ADDED comp.sys.amiga.games, after all was said and done? > If so, is connectivity good enough that traffic is arriving there? >The stuff's been arriving at PORTAL for some time. The earliest unexpired >item still online is dated 3-Aug-1990, and the last screenful looks like >the "dump" appended to this response. Thanks, Thad, but not what I was looking for; my fault. I typed "news" when I meant "new" in the subject line, and never noticed. The question I'm trying to have answered is very explicit: did the newgroup control message sent out by Eliot Lear, on or about 17 August 1990, cause ANY sites to add comp.sys.amiga.games to their list of active newsgroups. To date, I have no evidence for an affirmative answer. To recapitulate history a bit and see why the question is of interest: some "nefarious fiend" forged a set of newgroup control messages for various newsgroups back around the turn of the year. Most of these got rather promptly rmgrouped, including comp.sys.amiga.games. However, most sysops, out of sheer self preservation, intercept rmgroup messages for hand application only, and somehow comp.sys.amiga.games was spared by a significant fraction of them, and became a viable, if not well distributed, newsgroup. Enter me. I returned to the net in June after a haitus, and found the new group alive and well, but in need of a "real vote" to make its existance legitimate, and perhaps improve its distribution. After a bit of moral support in the Amiga groups, I undertook and successfully concluded the discussion period, vote, results posting, and wait for objections. Eliot was then kind enough to publish the newgroup control message, and comp.sys.amiga.games became a "real newsgroup", much in the way Pinnocio became a "real boy": one touch of the magic wand. All well and good, except it looks like forging a newgroup message is at least as effective as conducting a discussion and vote. Where are all the NEW sites in response to the correct procedure having been done, albeit a bit tardily? Conducting a discussion and vote is real work, time consuming, unrewarding, and, on the evidence, a waste of time, when forging a newgroup control message take perhaps two minutes, tops, and gets at least as good a distribution for the resulting new newsgroup. Since the sysops determine what groups' newgroup control messages are being respected, anyway, and they do that for forged as well as legitimate newgroup control messages, and since both seem to have exactly the same effect, are the rest of us fooling ourselves that we have any voice in the matter, and should we shift over to the alt method of creating groups, since that seems to be in effect what we have in reality, as opposed to in our guidelines, and save all the bandwidth and bad tempers our present system involves? Just asking, I don't think I'll be conducting any more votes soon with the present result as a guide. Note the followup line; I'm none too keen on sifting any discussion on this out of all the addressed groups. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>
Radagast@cup.portal.com (sullivan - segall) (09/03/90)
>> So tell me, was it all worth the effort? Are there any sites that >> actually ADDED comp.sys.amiga.games, after all was said and done? >>The stuff's been arriving at PORTAL for some time. The earliest unexpired >>item still online is dated 3-Aug-1990, and the last screenful looks like >>the "dump" appended to this response. > >Thanks, Thad, but not what I was looking for; my fault. I typed "news" >when I meant "new" in the subject line, and never noticed. > >The question I'm trying to have answered is very explicit: did the >newgroup control message sent out by Eliot Lear, on or about 17 August >1990, cause ANY sites to add comp.sys.amiga.games to their list of >active newsgroups. To date, I have no evidence for an affirmative answer. > In general Portal doesn't add any new newsgroups until they are *real* groups. The time period you are talking about was a bit unusual for Portal because we had just had several other groups added, and Portal was anxious to get caught up with the rest of the world. As a general rule however, Portal will ignore new groups until there is a noticeably amount of traffic on them, and either several people have requested that the group be added (implying that they noticed the voting procedure discussion and are interested in the new group, and therefor that the group is indeed valid) or the owners of Portal noticed the voting themselves and decided to add the group to Portal to improve its appeal or completeness. Disclaimer: I don't speak for Portal, I only use it to read NetMail. The above statements are conjecture, not fact. They are based on impressions gleaned over the last two years as Portal has grown and changed to more closely resemble the network hierarchies, and carry the newer newsgroups. IMHO this is one place where new groups would not be quickly added without proper voting procedure. -kls