Xref: utzoo news.sysadmin:3507 news.software.b:6681 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!julius.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!news From: flee@cs.psu.edu (Felix Lee) Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,news.software.b Subject: News today (Re: news.today) Message-ID: Date: 20 Jan 91 04:54:40 GMT References: <123@integrat.UUCP> <26583@ucsd.Edu> Sender: news@cs.psu.edu (Usenet) Organization: Penn State Computer Science Lines: 30 Nntp-Posting-Host: guardian.cs.psu.edu >Why, *GASP*, we could even call it MISC.HEADLINES Just think of We have over 1k newsgroups localized. Is it any wonder people can't find things any more? The "newsgroups" file would help, but it's rarely kept up-to-date, and no newsreading program uses it effectively. This is a user interface issue. A keywording scheme would be nice; lacking that, newsgroup names are the best keyword system we have, but there aren't enough of them. We need maybe a couple hundred more newsgroups to fill in the gaps and a couple hundred aliases to fix irregularities in the name scheme. One thing I've seen a lot lately is misnamed groups on the Newsgroups: line. Quick now, is it comp.sys.ibm.pc.msdos, comp.os.pc.msdos, comp.os.ms.dos, comp.sys.pc.msdos, or something else? This is another user interface issue. Wouldn't it be nice if you could tell your newsreader/newsposter "Newsgroups: aquaria,amiga.tech", and it will nail it down properly? Here's two simple rules: leading and trailing words can be omitted; words can be abbreviated. So you might say "r.h.funny" or just simply "funny". "humor" is either ambiguous or generates a list. It's 1991. "rn" is nearly 8 years old. Since then, we've gained Subject menus (>5 years old) and threads (>3 years). It's time for The News Interface of the 1990s. What, you're not done yet? Hurry up! -- Felix Lee flee@cs.psu.edu