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From: jbuck@janus.Berkeley.EDU (Joe Buck)
Newsgroups: news.admin,trial.newgroups
Subject: Re: Trial Hierarchy possibly on its last legs
Message-ID: <1991May17.185928.26980@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 17 May 91 18:59:28 GMT
References: <1991May17.170212.5145@looking.on.ca>
Sender: root@agate.berkeley.edu (Charlie Root)
Organization: U.C. Berkeley
Lines: 62

In article <1991May17.170212.5145@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:
>With some sadness I must report that we have not had success with the
>trial hierarchy.

Brad, "trial" was a worthy experiment but almost no one carried the hierarchy.

>There are several possible factors to consider:
>
>a) Very few people have tried trial groups.  I attribute a lot of this to
>Gene Spafford's inclusion of a "you might not get your group anyway, even if
>it passes" disclaimer on the front of the trial rules.

They don't try it because their site doesn't even get the "trial" distribution.

>b) Arbitron stats are becoming less reliable.  According to them, between
>25 and 50% of arbitron sites got trial groups.   25% of modern USENET is as
>big as all of USENET a couple of years ago.  *Plenty* of sites to support
>any newsgroup.   But a couple of the groups fizzled for lack of participation.

Arbitron stats grossly exaggerate the propagation numbers for nonstandard
hierarchies, because sites that get everything are far, far more likely
to get arbitron than sites that pick and choose groups.  Does anyone REALLY
believe that alt.sex.pictures has anywhere NEAR the distribution reported
in arbitron?  It's a self-selected sample.  I doubt if even 10% of sites
get "trial".  Don't believe me?  Try a "sendsys" in a restricted area
of the net and check.

>USENET has increased an order of magnitude while the number of arbitron sites
>stayed constant, or even dropped.   Not good.

Yes, I think that more and more, the only people running arbitron (with
few exceptions) are those for whom running mail and netnews is a fulltime
job, or folks with lots of outgoing feeds.  Such sites are much more likely
to carry groups they have no interest in, just to be able to provide complete
feeds.

>c) I could be totally wrong and people actually like the duke-it-out voting
>system.  In my opinion, that system is getting worse.  It's a lot of
>bureaucracy and noise, and I am not sure how well it is doing in judging
>groups.

For most groups, there is no "duke-it-out" involved at all.  The majority
of groups are proposed, discussed a bit, then voted on, with the votes
going 10 to 1 in favor of the group in question.  Since they are so
noncontroversial, the existing procedure works just fine for them, and
starting in "trial", where most of the net wouldn't get the group, would
be a very bad strategic move.  So yes, it appears that the net favors the
current system.  Sorry, Brad.  The bureaucracy and noise only happens for
the minority of groups that are noncontroversial.

>Courses of action:
>a) Abandon the trial hierarchy

Do it.  It was a worthy experiment, but it failed.  But there is another
possibility: treat "alt" like "trial".  This requires no rule changes;
at any time someone can suggest a move, and there can be a discussion and
vote.

-- 
--
Joe Buck
jbuck@janus.berkeley.edu	 {uunet,ucbvax}!janus.berkeley.edu!jbuck