wmartin (08/02/82)
A brief note: I guess I wasn't quite clear enough in my originall submission -- when I was talking about a "net directory", I didn't mean a SITE directory, but an ORGANIZATIONAL one. Even though many sites have machines dedicated to a particular organization, there are still guest accounts, and some machines with a combination of groups of users (or individual ones) from different organizations. Also, many organizations have several machines. I was thinking of a directory which would point to whatever net addresses would be best used to reach some particular organization, especially if you don't know an individual there to mail to directly. For example, after sending a USENIX inquiry to net.usenix, I was pointed to a particular Berkeley address for USENIX communications, which would go directly to the USENIX administration. This is one special use of that address, which is one of thousands at Berkeley. No site directory could list it, but an ORGANIZATIONAL directory would have it listed as the "USENIX contact point". Right now, I'm the only (as far as I know) person at my agency (USArmy DARCOM ALMSA) with USENET access. My address should be listed as the contact point for anyone trying to reach an office or individual within ALMSA, even though my USENET address here on BRL-BMD has absolutely nothing to do with ALMSA -- it is a guest account from a sister activity. This is the essential difference between site and organizational directories. Not even the ARPANET has a real organizational directory, by the way, and it is sorely missed. We can go through the mailing addresses of individuals in the ARPANET Directory to try to locate some mailbox to reach location "X", but it is tedious, and any address you find may well be obsolete or misleading when using this method. This was all prompted by a desire on my part to reach the National Computer Graphics Association, after not being able to get through by phone (I have by now, by the way). Such a group wouldn't have a site, but would be listed in an organizational directory, if they were accessible via USENET. Will Martin