emv@msen.com (Ed Vielmetti) (05/26/91)
i'm going to spin off a "comp.archives.lists" from the comp.archives group. the purpose of a comp.archives.lists group will be to separate out the comp.archives traffic that meets the following charter: - lists, collections, directories, or other compendia of information about archive sites or services, i.e. the Granrose list, the "archie" active site list, and other topical collections. - periodic postings of archive site usage information, including number of connections, most popular downloads, and other traffic metrics. - other information which is pertinent to the smooth care and operation of archives on a worldwide scale, which is directory rather than discussion oriented, and which has current value for only a limited amount of time. Materials for comp.archives.lists would have the same editorial license and quality control applied to them as the current comp.archives production. Care will be taken not to post lists which are extremely monstrous without some amount of effort to keep article sizes in check. As is the custom of other .lists groups, materials will appear on roughly a monthly cycle, dependent of course on their availability. comp.archives will no longer carry these materials, they will not be cross-posted. comp.archives.lists materials will be available from anonymous FTP locations as is the usual custom whenever possible; as far as I can manage, they will also be searchable on-line with some kind of full text indexing. Motivation for the change: - Monthly comprehensive postings tend to be huge, much larger than the 2-5k average article sizes for comp.archives. In order to produce efficient indexes for comp.archives, it's necessary to separate out the materials that refer to a small number of package from those which are comprehensive; that cuts way down on the number of false hits when you look for something. - I haven't been posting big things, even though they're interesting, because my archivist gets upset. So my 'lists' MH folder is starting to fill up. I don't like it when folders fill up. - Production of lists, catalogs, and indexes is a useful function quite independent from the discovery of new materials; providing a new space for these catalogs and some effort in developing them would be a good thing to do. I invite your comments. No scheduled start date yet; there's some preparation to be done first, archive sites to be arranged, discussion to be had. followup to comp.archives.admin if you get it at your site (we have it locally for some reason :) or to news.groups,comp.sources.d. -- Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, MSEN Inc. emv@msen.com "(6) The Plan shall identify how agencies and departments can collaborate to ... expand efforts to improve, document, and evaluate unclassified public-domain software developed by federally-funded researchers and other software, including federally-funded educational and training software; " "High-Performance Computing Act of 1991, S. 272"