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From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Give it up, folks
Message-ID: <1989Nov17.003452.17108@world.std.com>
Date: 17 Nov 89 00:34:52 GMT
References: <36339@apple.Apple.COM> <10119@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu> <36343@apple.Apple.COM> <1989Nov11.002535.21243@world.std.com> <255F14A9.16035@ateng.com> <1989Nov15.160912.8148@world.std.com> <2562D4BA.16645@ateng.com>
Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die
Lines: 34
In-Reply-To: chip@ateng.com's message of 16 Nov 89 15:39:36 GMT


From: chip@ateng.com (Chip Salzenberg)
>If there were too many groups created by a variety of people, each of whom
>has a unique idea of how the namespace should be used, and without any
>restraint from popular opinion, the result would be a _very_ confusing mess.
>As opposed to the moderately confusing mess we have now.

Well, anyhow, as has been adequately pointed out, the namespace
problem and the group creation problem are ultimately independent.

Of course, by creating no or very few newsgroups you avoid (i.e. beg)
the issue of fixing the namespace. If you have no groups (or as few as
possible) then you never have to fix how they are named, but a lot of
this discussion was prompted by the attempt to create *ONE* group.

Talk about a house of cards.

By separating the two problems and improving how we approach each we
might be able to fix things. If we keep insisting on confusing the two
issues I doubt we'll get anywhere.

Kinda like some fairy tale with a moral lesson, a town forbidding
people to have more children because all the "proper" names have been
taken and it's too confusing to have any more Johns and Marys.

I think the USENET is now more or less in this state, the crazy and
painful voting rules no longer seem to be motivated by a sincere
desire to get quality groups, it's motivated (at least in some) by
trying to protect a collapsing namespace from further collapse.
-- 
        -Barry Shein

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