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From: mandel@vax.anes.tulane.edu (Jeff E Mandel MD MS)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds
Subject: Re: Splitting the group
Message-ID: <6736@rex.cs.tulane.edu>
Date: 20 Mar 91 23:51:04 GMT
References: <1991Mar11.142217.21407@schaefer.math.wisc.edu> <1991Mar15.190012.18656@roundup.crhc.uiuc.edu> <719@thebeach.UUCP>,<4849@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>
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In article <4849@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>, rick@pavlov.ssctr.bcm.tmc.edu (Richard H. Miller) writes:
>And this is why the call for vote is premature and the discussion should
>have been brought into the net before calling for vote. The moderated 
>group will include source. The is another group call comp.sources.* which
>is designed specifically for source listings. This is to allow sites to 
>not include source postings for whatever reasons that site might have. Thus
>comp.sys.hp48 is misnamed and should be comp.sources.hp48. [IMHO]. 
>
>The bottom line is that there are certain characteristics of news group
>proposals which do have an impact beyond what a proponent might believe. It
>should be discussed by the net at large.
>-- 
It is true that comp.sys.hp will probably include some sources, however, it is
intended mainly as a mechanism for distilling the enormous volume of material
that is HP48-related down to a manageable volume, and providing assistance in
archiving. It is not yet clear that the volume on this group will be sufficient
to warrant splitting sources out to another group; besides, what do you do with
uuencoded files? Do you then need a binaries group as well to maintain the
purity? The point being that this started as an effort to create one new group,
and now is creating two groups, and Rick is trying to make it 3 or four groups,
in three different hierarchies. Given the number of readers who get this group
gatewayed, do you really want to have to worry about that many groups at this
point before we see what is going to happen with twoin a single hiearchy? If
the volume of HP48 sources is so large as to warrant moving them out of
comp.sys.hp48, then mechanisms abound. FTP sites and mail servers come to mind.
Personally, I find these preferrable, as I find I never appreciate the
importance of most code until it has been expired from my local NNTP server
anyway.

In any event, it seems to me that while there were some individuals who felt
that this was not the approach they wanted (i.e. the .rpn/.tenkey/.saturn
proposals), the major consensus that formed was for an HP48 group. It is not
clear that those opposing the split are, in large part, ammenable to other
proposals; only about one in eight of the no votes have indicated that their
reason for opposition is due to the specific implementation, i.e. moderated,
domain, etc. [Note that while I do not encourage long diatribes in the votes, I
do appreciate the occasional short note, joke, offer of money...].

I suggest that the current proposal, while not being an enduring plan for the
ages, will prove workable for the next few years. By then, everyone will have
the Cray PenPoint or such, and the HP48 group will be viewed as a bunch of
computer historians :-)


Jeff E Mandel MD MS
Asst. Professor of Anesthesiology
Tulane University School of Medicine
New Orleans, LA
mandel@vax.anes.tulane.edu