Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!texbell!ssbn!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: You want one that fits in 25 lines?
Message-ID: <47564@looking.on.ca>
Date: 14 Nov 89 22:23:56 GMT
References: <45326@looking.on.ca> <3004@com50.C2S.MN.ORG>
Reply-To: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 37
Class: discussion

In article <3004@com50.C2S.MN.ORG> craig@com2serv.c2s.mn.org (Craig S. Wilson) writes:
>Is "trial" going to get worldwide distribution or will many sites
>limit it because it may carry non-productive proto-newsgroups at some
>point.  Other than starting with a clean slate, how would "trial"
>differ from "alt"?

Many sites will not get it.   It will carry anything that is a serious
attempt at a newsgroup.  trial.sex, for example.  Trial sysadmins would
be expected to take more care with what they feed and take -- the whole point
of trial, in fact, is to measure those decisions.  Trial would have active
sysadmins.   It would differ from alt in that frivolous newgroups would
not take place -- alt.weemba, net.db, etc.   And the names would be chosen
by one volunteer, so they would be consistent.   And trial groups would,
by and large, be rmgrouped if they fail.  Unlike alt.

>Please clarify "high readership".  And, how about allowing for
>topical, relatively short-lived groups to extend beyond the 6 months?

High readership would be something like 2/readers per reporting site in
trial, including sites that don't even get the group, but report that they
don't get it.  This number needs to be high enough to be clear to everybody.

And yes, short lived groups could stay in trial, I suppose.

>A lot of USENET is about pissing and moaning.

But the growth of usenet is being stifled by that pissing and moaning.
It's just not a productive use of our networking time.  Sometimes I wonder
how I can spend my time on a net where the big serious issues are things like
"are fishies science or recreation" and "can we have a group about women and
computers" and "hey, my vote bounced, the end is near."

The trivial whino issues are overwhelming everything else.  Perhaps I am the
only one who thinks there might be better things to talk about, if there
were room.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473