Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rice!husc6!popvax!kovar
From: kovar@popvax.harvard.edu (David C. Kovar)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Priority scheme for comp.sys.mac.binaries?
Message-ID: <1365@husc6.harvard.edu>
Date: 24 Jan 90 21:31:21 GMT
References: <1330@husc6.harvard.edu> <1076@dutrun.UUCP>
Sender: news@husc6.harvard.edu
Reply-To: kovar@popvax.UUCP (David C. Kovar)
Organization: Health Sciences Computing Facility, Harvard University
Lines: 54

In article <1076@dutrun.UUCP> leo@duttnph.UUCP (Leo Breebaart) writes:
>Who *does* decide the order of posting in that group anyhow, and how come we 
>haven't heard from him/her yet? This discussion has been going on some time 
>now, and we might at least get an opinion or justification from the moderator.

  I started this mess so I'd like to see if I can put the brakes on it
a bit. 

  Roger Long (I think I've the name right) has been moderating the
binaries group for at least two years, maybe more. Moderation of
an information group is bad enough - you have to read through the
articles, pick the ones to go out, post them, answer hate mail,
and the like. Moderating a group that distributes software requires
all of the above, plus testing the stuff (usually) plus binhexing
it, breaking it down into net sized chunks, and posting it.

  Now scripts can do some of this, but only so much. It takes a LOT
of work. Worse still, noone notices it 'til something goes wrong.
I'm a very good example of that. As long as the postings suited my
needs I never once said "Thank you". Now it seems that my
dissatisfaction with the postings isn't limited to me (I've only heard
one person say that demos should stay and noone has objected to
the classification scheme.) but we still have to take Roger's
point of view. If he's already working at peak efficiency, even
changing his current methods is going to be a problem. If we ask
for something that requires more work he may just throw up his hands
and forget it. And I wouldn't blame him.

  Now that we've seen that a priority queue scheme is reasonably
popular, does anyone have any good ideas on how to implement it?
Keep in mind that you've got to take a number of articles that
are mailed to you, possibly glue them together, create a file that
you can move to your Mac to test, then, if it passes, break the
file into net sized chunks, put an informative header on it,
drop it into some sort of queue, and then get something out of
the queue and ship it off to the net.

  Serious suggestions for doing this would be appreciated. If we
can find a way to implement this scheme without increasing Roger's
workload we have a better chance of actually seeing it happen.



  
hea

-David C. Kovar
	Consultant				ARPA: kovar@popvax.harvard.edu
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         "It is easier to get forgiveness than permission."

[All opinions expressed are my own. Noone else assumes responsibility for me.]