Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!wuarchive!udel!princeton!njin!limonce From: limonce@pilot.njin.net (Tom Limoncelli) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: CALL FOR LOCAL DISCUSSION: Split the c.s.a group more? Message-ID: Date: 12 Oct 90 19:25:04 GMT References: <1990Oct6.051722.7143@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <1990Oct8.055618.27507@IRO.UMontreal.CA> Organization: Drew University/NJIN Lines: 86 I have explained my strategy earlier, now I'm going to post my research and my proposal. From October 10 until Oct 12, 1990 I collected statistics on the messages in "c.s.a". Anything that was crossposted to c.s.a.tech or c.s.a.hardware was not included. Some messages were counted twice if they were about many things. I should have collected statistics for more days, in fact, I will continue for a while and post if there is much of a difference. I wish someone else would do this too, I'm sure that the categories that I came up with weren't the same that everyone else would have. Top Topics From Comp.Sys.Amiga on pilot.njin.net Oct 10-12, 1990: ----------------------------------------------------------------- Count Topic category ----------------------------------------------------------------- 33 Free/PD/Shareware/etc. Software 31 Commercial Software 19 Should have been posted to comp.sys.amiga.hardware 17 "Network" (Newsgroup creation/proper use, Usenet policies, how to FTP) 17 "Emulation" (AMAX, Bridgeboard, various emulators, (Minix too)) 15 Other computers (should have posted to alt.???, comp.sys.?? or comp.sys.amiga.misc) 15 "C-A Policy" (Prices, Sales, Marketing, Edu. discounts, MB, etc.) 13 Hardware recomendations 11 Audio/sound/etc. 9 Compatibility with new hardware (3000, etc.) 8 For sale/wanted 7 Telecommunications (Marco was every other post :-) 6 Amiga OS Issues 6 Should have been posted to comp.sys.amiga.tech 5 Shows and conferences 5 Multimedia 3 Virus news 3 Networking (Ethernet, Appletalk, etc.) 2 Fonts 2 Printer recommendations 2 Animations 1 Tape drives 1 Announcements. It seems that the discussion of specific software products (Commercial as well as free/share/etc.) is the most popular things discussed. This makes comp.sys.amiga.software a good choice. Of course, programmers will post there instead of comp.sys.amiga.tech. Maybe the name should be comp.sys.amiga.software.finished? :-) I think the reorganization should be: comp.sys.amiga.misc Replace comp.sys.amiga comp.sys.amiga.software.dev For programmers (replaces comp.sys.amiga.tech) comp.sys.amiga.software For the users comp.sys.amiga.games Same as it is now comp.sys.amiga.hardware Same as it is now Considering that 19 posts should have been posted to comp.sys.amiga.hardware, this makes me think that c.s.a.hardware is either mis-named, or I don't understand it's purpose.:-) Assuming the former, maybe people need to know that it is for hardware developers AND users looking for recommendations AND users looking to fix hardware-related problems. Maybe we need .hardware.users and .hardware.developers so that people about to post to c.s.a will see that there are better choices. Anyway... as I said before (in another post) the purpose of creating a new newsgroup is to make it so that readers can read FEWER articles. Following that philosophy, *I* should propose a newsgroup for something that *I* don't want to read. That would clear that entire class of articles out of comp.sys.amiga. Therefore, selfishly, since I don't read the "Emulations" I think we should create a newsgroup for those articles. I propose: "comp.sys.amiga.emulations: A place to discuss software and hardware emulation of other computers and operating systems including (but not limited to) Mac, IBM, Atari ST, C-64's microprocessors, etc." What do you think? Is the "emulations" topic just a fad? Should we do the above (first) reorganization, wait for the dust to settle, then think about additional newsgroups? -Tom -- tlimonce@drew.edu Tom Limoncelli "Freedom and justice tlimonce@drew.uucp +1 201 408 5389 are opposites" tlimonce@drew.Bitnet limonce@pilot.njin.net -me