Xref: utzoo news.admin:11524 comp.sources.d:6149 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!athena.mit.edu!jik From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) Newsgroups: news.admin,comp.sources.d Subject: Re: The responsibilities of volunteers Message-ID: <1990Dec12.192853.29655@athena.mit.edu> Date: 12 Dec 90 19:28:53 GMT References: <1990Dec10.073955.28681@athena.mit.edu> <12102:Dec1020:45:5990@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <1990Dec10.214342.25051@athena.mit.edu> <1537:Dec1108:31:5790@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system) Reply-To: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 151 In article <1537:Dec1108:31:5790@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>, brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes: |> So why my accusations that you simply don't believe? As I have already explained, Dan, in the portion of my article you did not bother to quote, I made no accusations. I simply stated possibilities. When trying to analyze a situation, it is usually a good idea to put all possibilities, even the ones that you think are less probable, on the table in order to have a full picture of what's going on. Here's what I said in the original article: > It is entirely possible that Rich has been reading the discussion in this >newsgroup, and has posted sources recently because of that discussion. It is >entirely possible that the activity of the past week will taper out as it has >many times in the past, and that we will then see several months with no >activity at all, despite many items waiting to be posted. Your assertiong >that "this week has been active" does nothing whatsoever to belie the claim >that the TREND has been toward more idle gaps and less activity. This paragraph was posted in response to a paragraph in which Kent Paul Dolan claimed that since several messages have been posted in the last week or so, Rich must be "_pouring_ sources out." I was trying to point out that such a generalization based only on the number of postings in the past week, without considering any other external factors, is not very wise, and I did so by pointing out just *one* factor that might have affected the number of postings. |> Yes, it's conceivable that complaints cause postings to appear in |> comp.sources.unix. So what? If the packages are appearing, then they're |> appearing. I don't care what the ``causes'' are. If complaints are what causes postings to appear, then it logically follows that in order for postings to continue to appear regularly, we have to continue complaining. Perhaps you consider that an acceptable solution; I do not. I do not think that people should have to complain before a moderator does his job. If you disagree with that, then we'll just have to agree to disagree. |> Well, golly gee. My first submission to a professional mathematical |> journal was in limbo for two years. This is called industry practice. Are you equating comp.sources.unix with a professional mathematical journal, Dan? Gee, that one rates pretty high up there on the Gilly scale; I'd say it's at least a centigilly. If you think that six months between submission and posting is a reasonable time lag for comp.sources.unix, then once again, we will have to agree to disagree, because I do not, for two reasons. First of all, because the time lag has been a lot smaller in the past, and second of all, because I believe that it is possible to reduce the time lag now. |> You say that some postings go through Rich without change (other than |> repackaging). Guess what? A huge number of math papers are published |> without change (other than repackaging). Once again, I'm afraid I just don't think the parallel between a printed mathematics journal and comp.sources.unix is strong enough to make any comparison worthwhile. Among other things, you usually have to pay to get a journal. Editors of journals are usually paid, nor volunteer workers. Editors of journals can usually get fired if they aren't doing their jobs. My point, which you seem to have either missed or ignored, was in response to the incredible job that Rich must be doing since so many packages that go through comp.sources.unix have had major portions rewritten by him. Well, I've been watching comp.sources.unix for a long time, and I don't recall seeing *any* packages with "major portions rewritten by him." Maybe I just missed them. But until the person who made that claim puts up some statistics, I will not accept it as any sort of evidence of what a wonderful job Rich does as moderator. Mind you, that doesn't mean I don't think he does a good job. By and large, I think he does a very good job. When he gets around to it. |> > What exactly do you consider <1990Dec3.064608.22544@athena.mit.edu>, Dan? |> |> A rather vacuous article that draws no reliable statistical conclusions. |> The nearly incomprehensible graph (Tufte strongly recommends a table for |> similar situations) doesn't justify your complaints. Well, gee, Dan, maybe the fact that the graph was "nearly incomprehensible" is why I presented a table of data right above the graph, so that people who thought the graph was a bit difficult to read could read the data directly or use it to produce their own graphs? It took me ten minutes to produce that graph once I had the data; I suspect that anyone reading this conversation who's really interested can find a tool at his/her site to produce a more readable (i.e. not text-based :-) grap relatively quickly. If not, they can read the raw data. It seems to me, Dan, that you're just searching for ways to criticize what I've posted; in particular, your claims that I have not posted "statistics" seem to be quite specious, especially since I've posted more statistics than anyone else involved in this discussion. I took the time to go through all of the archives and figure out what's been happening for the past few years; no one else did. When someone said that only two people have been complaining, I took the time to go through the entire conversation and verify, objectively, that this was not the case. You accuse my data of drawing "no reliable statistical conclusions," and yet you defend the conclusions of someone who posts, "There have been an average of two packages per week by adding together all of the packages on uunet and dividing by the number of weeks, so there must not be a flow problem?" That's laughable, Dan. You say that the graph I included doesn't justify my complaints. I say that it does. My first complaint was that output to the newsgroup has been very irregular. The graph shows that this is, indeed, the case. Now you may say, "But it's always been irregular," tho which I respond, "Then perhaps it's always been a problem?" Whether or not it's always been irregular does not invalidate the complaint or make it impossible for the data/graph to justify the complain. My second complaint is that the delays between submssion and posting are getting longer. As I've pointed out several times, the only person who can verify this statistically is Rich, since he's the only person who knows how many and how often submissions are received. However, I've posted several lines of reasoning which I think show that it is likely that this complaint is correct. I don't recall seeing you respond to any of them, so I'll post them again for your benefit: (1) The increasing number of complaints from people who have seen submitted sources and not had them posted after long delays would seem to imply that there are more people having this problem, which would seem to imply that either the delays are getting longer or the number of packages that are delayed is increasing, or both. (2) The net has been growing, and with it, the number of programmers has been growing. The source traffic to almost every newsgroup on the net has been increasing. It stands to reason, then, that the source submission rate to c.s.u has been increasing. Despite that, the posting rate to c.s.u has *not* been increasing significantly. If the submission rate goes up but the posting rate does not, then there must be longer delays. |> I didn't call your complaints idiotic. I do consider your recent |> postings here to be full of whining and drivel, and I've given you |> several reasons for my opinion; I don't mean to insult you by giving an |> honest evaluation. (That's what ``no offense intended'' means.) I have, over and over again, attempted to explain, calmly and using reason, why I think there is a problem. I have not called for a lynch mob to hang Rich. I have not attempted to win the discussion using emotionalism, or arguments appealing to the status quo, or arguments appealing to which netters are "newbies" and which are "not." I therefore fail to see what I have said that could be classified as "whining." Or is any opinion which disagrees with yours "whining?" You *know* that there's no problem in c.s.u, so if someone disagrees with you and thinks that there is a problem, they must be "whining," is that it? -- Jonathan Kamens USnail: MIT Project Athena 11 Ashford Terrace jik@Athena.MIT.EDU Allston, MA 02134 Office: 617-253-8085 Home: 617-782-0710