Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!mcnc!ecsgate!ecsvax!ruslan From: ruslan@uncecs.edu (Robin C. LaPasha) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: CALL FOR LOCAL DISCUSSION Revision 2: Split the c.s.a group more? Keywords: reply time limited Message-ID: <1990Oct29.060811.10094@uncecs.edu> Date: 29 Oct 90 06:08:11 GMT References: <1990Oct28.001448.25414@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service Lines: 173 > PROPOSAL ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > comp.sys.amiga.misc >Replaces c.s.a; general talk group. Fine, whatever. > comp.sys.amiga.announce >Moderated: FF-disks, meetings, new products, product updates, shareware >releases, uploads to archives, bug reports, etc. Excellent... though I'd modify your description to make the submitters less tempted towards crass commercial announcements ;^). > comp.sys.amiga.reviews >Moderated, archived: where to put your formally written up impressions ^^^^^^^^^^(huh?) >of new stuff: hardware and freeware, shareware, or commercial serious >and game software. Again, good idea I guess, though the moderator should be of stern enough stuff to reject sloppy materials (especially if it's going to be archived.) > comp.sys.amiga.introduction >Frequently asked questions, how to use the groups, and other standard >and slow expiring postings, also new users' questions and the answers to >them from sympathetic gurus go here. I liked someone else's (Peter's?) idea of combining this with announce, though not if this is unmoderated (you don't specify that here.) In fact, I don't see there to be a need for an _unmoderated_ "introduction" - or perhaps we should call it "newusers" - group. If the "what's a fish disk" and "where's ftp and how do I do it" are regularly posted, folks shouldn't have to INSTANTLY ask the really odd questions. I think if you REALLY want an interactive group that doesn't overlap with ".announce" too much, you should make it ".questions". > comp.sys.amiga.hardware Of course. > comp.sys.amiga.programmer (Renames .tech) I too have been one of those folks who sometimes wondered about the diff between ".hardware" and ".tech" - this would clarify where to post. > comp.sys.amiga.games Fine, away, away from here! (As in yes, it helps.) > comp.sys.amiga.multimedia >Graphics, video, music, speech, and multimedia combinations. Now WAIT just a doggone minute! Kent, whoa! Not _all_ of that in one group. It would be too BIG. My hypermedia mailing list has over 100 folks on it - I think I'd better go grab their comments on this if you need convincing - a LOT of them have asked to be on the list because they can't handle the type of traffic in c.s.a.. This multimedia group would get all of the graphics, all of the sound, AND all of the multimedia stuff. And by stuff I mean both software (which would get erroneously crossposted to .apps as well as .misc) and hardware (which would get crossposted to hardware.) I for one wouldn't be able to read it. Every Dpaint bug? Every Dr.T's question? The Video Toaster and the graphics boards (which would be crossposted to... influence??) No, no, I can't deal with something that BIG. In case you need a reference - our hypermedia group deals with the dozen or so major multimedia software products (like AmigaVision, Deluxe Video, etc...) We can surely see the relevance of talking about more than one type of product in terms of hooking it all together. (Like, how do you convert Music-doohickey files to SMUS so that AmigaVision will play them? How big do those multimedia files get when your DPaint graphics are all overscan?) But - to open up a group to ... essentially anything and everything the Amiga has special goodies in (gfx, sound, video)... makes the group too big. If you intend such a catchall you should call it comp.sys.amiga.multipurpose, not multimedia. I'm not against the idea of a multimedia group (neither are a lot of folks in the mailing list, as I'm sure they'll follow up themselves. ;^)) I just say what you're proposing is too wide a scope. We've already gone over the idea of separate...music, midi, speech, stillgfx, video, and multimedia groups - and the problem of too much crossposting comes up. Thus said - 1) Does anyone have any bets on how a "sound" group would do, encompassing speech (generation and recognition) AND music (midi and 8SVX and SMUS and all that stuff?) 2) What about a "graphics" group, concerning still pics of all kinds, PLUS animations and video fx? (This group would have lots of crossposting to comp.graphics, but no more than already occurs.) 3) The "multimedia" group would have crossposting from the above groups, yes, but would be reserved for discussion of - a) the special products that handle more than one of the above, and b) other, unusual or ad-hoc, multimedia linkages (like the Atlanta Olympics presentation, for example.) Do folks think that multimedia can go as a separate group WITHOUT major huge amounts of crossposting from sound and sight camps? I do, but I'm biased. ;^) Note that I have lumped all sounds and all graphics into 2 groups NOT since I feel that MIDI is just like synthesized speech or that the Toaster is just like DPaint, but because I think the combination of VOLUME would be less likely to either starve or overload the groups, considering that (IMHO) they are generally coherent topic groupings. Again, I just say that lumping ALL sound and ALL sight together as "multimedia" makes too big a group. > comp.sys.amiga.applications Somehow it seems vague. Call it bizapps instead? (I know, you're trying to keep like the rest of the net...) >The rest of the applications software discussions:... >non-multimedia software applications talk. I can see the sharks here. Mebbe re-think how to chop up software, as what do Amigoids do for biz... > comp.sys.amiga.market Ah. Combo forsale and "Montgomery Grant" tales. Not a bad cohabitation, really. I like it. > comp.sys.amiga.emulations Good, better than a MONGO kill file (and yes, I can see where it's an "okay," "legit" group to have too!) > comp.sys.amiga.influence Would they really stay there? Most "ranters" seem to cross-post just to attract flamage. Be nice if it worked, though... I liked the "mongering" title too. ;^) > comp.sys.amiga.datacomm Zzz... what? Huh? Oh, yeah. ;^) (The narrow topics of the "perfect vt100 emulation" and "how to do a shared zmodem" generate a LOT of traffic, frequently of a pretty good s/n ratio. In other words, I don't wanna read it but somebody must, and they're honorably serious when they do it. ;^)) > comp.unix.amiga Minix? Uh, there is a minix group already somewhere. Comp.os.minix or something. It could have some possibly unwelcome crossposting. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >VOTING. >When (LATER!) it is time to vote, I'll put up a ballot to cut and paste >(or inclusive "R"eply, but change the address!) with yes/no votes on the >functionality of each proposed subgroup; net rules for Yes > (No + 100) ^^^^ Okay, as long as we can vote for/against them separately. >YOUR COMMENTS. Open season Boom ;^) >Kent, the man from xanth. > >-- >And they're off! Their... -- Robin LaPasha |Keeper of the Amiga ruslan@ecsvax.uncecs.edu |Hypermedia Mailing List