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From: sichermn@beach.csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman)
Newsgroups: news.groups,comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: CALL FOR DISCUSSION: comp.os.msdos.desqview
Message-ID: <1990Nov26.192502.1820@beach.csulb.edu>
Date: 26 Nov 90 19:25:02 GMT
References: <m0ibpSR-0000M9C@chinet.chi.il.us> <1990Nov26.145552.586@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU>
Organization: Cal State Long Beach
Lines: 68

In article <1990Nov26.145552.586@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> Ran Atkinson <randall@Virginia.EDU> writes:
>As the person who organised and ran the changes last summer
>which created the entire comp.os.msdos.* and comp.os.os2.*
>heirarchies and generally reorganised that segment of namespace,
>I find the proposal to create comp.os.msdos.desqview to be
>not well formed.

I'm not sure what 'well formed' is or means, unless it's just a description
of the following points. However, I have found the forest represented by the
named hierarchies to make it difficult to find the proper tree to post an
inquiry. This is not a criticism of the creator, just a comment that
generality is not necessarily to be preferred over specificity, regardless
of traffic. If I know what I want and what I'm talking about, by chances
of getting good, expert information are better in a targetted group with
(supposedly) well-informed and interested readers, rather than one which
many people frequent and which the specialists must plow through tons of
things relatively uninteresting to them.

>The best reason to create a newsgroup is because there is evidence
>of existing traffic which would warrant a separate newsgroup.  
>Having a lot of very low traffic groups is unproductive because

>This proposal clearly fails both criteria.  Desqview programmer questions
>periodically arise and are addressed in the existing group 
>comp.os.msdos.programmer and general Desqview questions periodically arise
>and are addressed in the existing group comp.os.msdos.programmer.
>There is not sufficient traffic to warrant a newgroup (as admitted by
>the proposer in the Call for Discussion no less).  Also, there would
>be a tendency to crosspost items between the existing groups in comp.os.msdos.*

 I think you have chosen to forget or ignore the commnet in the original
proposal that the fidonet group, which is quite active, could be gated.
We might also be lucky enough for Quarterdeck to listen in and save all of
us some phone costs of reaching their BBS. This could increase the volume
significantly and I don't think there is any way to measure this potential
by current postings because the information isnt really available here yet.

 ... deleted ...
>
>Also, I have questions about the proposed name.  The MS-Windows environment
>is comparable to Desqview in function and in relation to MS-DOS and yet
>lives in its own area (comp.windows.ms.*) rather than in the regular
>MS-DOS space.  If a newgroup were to be created (I don't see any
>justification just now), it probably should be in comp.os.desqview or
>comp.windows.desqview or some other namespace than the regular MS-DOS
>area.  This different namespace idea has been demonstrated to work
>well in reducing inappropriate cross-postings.

   Well, I think this is minor but I yield to your expertise here and I'm
for anything that shortens names to be typed. I have a minor concern of my
own in that the name excludes qemm, qram, etc but then windows does the
same to himem, smartdrv, etc with out noticeable harm to questions about
them. And desqview is clear, well-known, and unambiguous.

>
>All things considered, the Desqview proposal is one that isn't a good idea
>at the moment.  It should be tabled for 6 months and then if traffic
>has picked up and there is clear need it should be proposed and discussed
>further then.
>
  All things considered, I obviously disagree. Now personally I would like
to see a group for other multitaskers (PCMOS, VM386 ...) but I havent seen
*any* discussion on them, so lets table that for 6 months. I dont think
(unless I misunderstand your point) that you table discussion, just the
vote at most.

Jeff Sicherman
sichermn@beach.csulb.edu