randall@Virginia.EDU (Ran Atkinson) (01/29/91)
In article <26551@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> jdb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian K. W. Hook) writes: >What's the difference between the following? > >comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer This is no longer a VALID USENET newsgroup. It was deleted after a valid vote held last summer and the results were posted and the appropriate control messages sent out last Summer. If your site has it then your news administrator needs to run a "Checkgroups" on the active file at your site. Gene Spafford ("Spaf") posts the official checkgroups message monthly to various groups including news.announce.newusers >comp.os.msdos.programmer This was created in the same vote last summer that we removed the now defunct group comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer. At the same time, comp.os.os2.programmer was created for OS/2 stuff. Later a group named comp.windows.ms.programmer (for MS-Windows) was also created. >alt.msdos.programmer Any group that has a name beginning with alt.something is NOT part of the official USENET and there is no official procedure for creating or destroying groups in ALTnet. USENET votes and procedures are not valid for ALT groups. ALT stands for "alternative". >Also, who decides how these groups are organized? The net as a whole decides how USENET groups are named and organised. For the full details, go read the monthly postings to news.announce.newusers which outlines both history and current procedure. >There seems to be a lot >of mismanagement in the design/maintenance of the boards. For example, >wouldn't it be more intelligent to have: > >comp.lang.c.k&r >comp.lang.c.ansi >comp.lang.c.misc >comp.lang.c.borland >comp.lang.c.microsoft No. It makes more sense to organise by the OS and hardware than by the vendor because most of the questions relate to OS and hardware rather than one particular vendor. This has been learned by the net from experience with various organisations and this style seems to actually work the best. In fact, until recently most of the net.folks were UNIX users and so the PC (including Apple, Amiga, et. al.) groups haven't had nearly as many readers. This is changing with time so that I don't think that UNIX users are a majority any more. Most news is still transported by UNIX systems though. :-) >Just wondering. I'm new to all this, so please don't flame me too badly. No flames at all. It is a pity that more sites don't make their new users go read the postings in news.announce.newusers at least once so they understand USENET right off. Ran Atkinson randall@Virginia.EDU net.oldtimer (dating back to 1984) and the person who proposed and ran the IBM PC Reorganisation last summer...
stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) (01/29/91)
jdb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian K. W. Hook) writes: > What's the difference between the following? > > comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer This is for questions regarding IBM PC's and clones. Not all IBM-PC's run MS-DOS. > comp.os.msdos.programmer This is for MS-DOS programmers. There is more to MS-DOS than C. And MS-DOS can run on other than IBM PC's. > alt.msdos.programmer This is an alt group and nobody cares. :-) > Also, who decides how these groups are organized? The net as a whole, through a discussion/voting process. There is a considerable amount of discussion from many people that goes into setting up groups. Except for the alt groups. > There seems to be a lot > of mismanagement in the design/maintenance of the boards. Thank you for enlightening us. By the way, they are not "boards", they are newsgroups. Do you realize just how many people you are accusing of mismanagement? I recommend you NOT say things like this in the news.* groups. On second thought, please go to news.groups and say this. Things have been pretty quiet lately, and a good flame war there would be refreshing. Better yet, use terms like "D00D", and sign your message with the name BIFF. Run your message through UUENCODE a dozen times or so, and everyone will love you. > For example, > wouldn't it be more intelligent to have: > > comp.lang.c.k&r > comp.lang.c.ansi > comp.lang.c.misc > comp.lang.c.borland > comp.lang.c.microsoft Now, tell us all which group we post to when there is a question about TurboC's adherence to the ANSI standard. Or comparisons between TurboC and MSC. If you say "two newsgroups", you shoot yourself in the foot. Now tell us that there is enough traffic in each catagory to warrant having 5 newsgroups. Where does the UNIX C programmer go to ask questions, and why should he be segregated from the MS-DOS programmer? Before you answer that, keep in mind that UNIX forms a large percentage of this net, perhaps larger than the MS-DOS contingent. You should reflect on your usage of the term "intelligent". Consider it carefully, and then tell us why you think we are less intelligent than you. > etc. instead of misc unrelated postings on comp.os.unix.programmer, etc. > etc. etc. MS-DOS questions should not be posted to c.o.u.p. However, it is quite appropriate to ask C related questions in c.o.u.p, as some of the problems are directly related to the C LIBRARIES, which can be different on MS-DOS and UNIX systems. > Just wondering. I'm new to all this, so please don't flame me too badly. Perhaps you should ask your site admin how USEnet works, instead of deciding that the structure is not intelligent and we are all mismanaging the "boards". Better yet, tell HIM you think HE is mismanaging USEnet (yes, he is part of the problem). Find out how much of an anarchy USEnet is, and how much compromise there is just to continue existance, and THEN come tell us how badly we are managing things. If you want to see how the group creation process works, subscribe to news.groups. If you want to know how it is supposed to work, get the intro to USEnet documents. Jeez, I wish site admins would force their charges to read the intro information about USEnet before letting them post. At least this one didn't refer to the USEnet as "buggered boards".
rja7m@grace.cs.Virginia.EDU (Ran Atkinson) (01/29/91)
In article <Dokiw4w163w@phoenix.com> stanley@phoenix.com (John Stanley) writes: >jdb@reef.cis.ufl.edu (Brian K. W. Hook) writes: > >> What's the difference between the following? >> >> comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer > > This is for questions regarding IBM PC's and clones. Not all IBM-PC's > run MS-DOS. The above statement is NOT correct. The group comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer was REMOVED by the same vote that created comp.os.msdos.programmer and comp.os.os2.programmer last summer. Sites that still receive comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer need to run a "CHECKGROUPS" message from Spaf across their USENET active file. Regards, Ran randall@Virginia.EDU