Xref: utzoo news.newusers.questions:1682 comp.groupware:133 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!emv From: emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions,comp.groupware Subject: Re: Should I say "Hear hear" ? Message-ID: Date: 15 Mar 90 05:15:01 GMT References: <2830@castle.ed.ac.uk> Sender: news@math.lsa.umich.edu Followup-To: comp.groupware Organization: University of Michigan Math Dept., Ann Arbor MI. Lines: 41 In-reply-to: aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk's message of 14 Mar 90 22:56:32 GMT In article <2830@castle.ed.ac.uk> aipdc@castle.ed.ac.uk (Paul D. Crowley) writes: I often read articles which I feel make a very intelligent point and immeadiately reach for the f key to say "Hear hear, this man is absolutely right - listen to him". Or sometimes "Yeah, I'd like an answer to that one too." The ideal solution would be an addition to the news software which says "A,B, and C all said "Hear, hear!" to this article". The traditional "back-channel" for news is mail -- write something to the author expressing your opinion, even a Hear hear is gratifying. That's useful. Another way to do it is to mail the article in question to one of your off-net friends, or send it to an off-net mailing list -- if you can find the list that's suitable. A more expensive way of doing this is to collect all of the great postings over time and re-post them every once in a while to certain selected newsgroups. Or squirrel them away in your favorite spot, either your own private hoard or some place accessible via a server. Packaged together, these could be quite useful (especially if you keep a thematic collection, or index it heavily, or somehow add value to it.) I have the idea I'm doing some of this with comp.archives; a similar idea might be suitable for a comp.books.reviews or a comp.books.bibliography group (no they don't exist, just an idea). There was talk of a "comp.groupware.f" when comp.groupware got started, a newsgroup just to hold "followups" to discussions. It was rejected. I think there's room in news to add a back-channel just for Hear Hear messages, though how exactly to encode the thing and present it nicely to the user is beyond me. (Control messages perhaps?) But I agree, there is a space for lightweight acknowlegement of agreement, just how to figure out how to get the word out appropriately. --Ed Edward Vielmetti, U of Michigan math dept. emv@math.lsa.umich.edu