From: utzoo!decvax!microsof!uw-beaver!cornell!hal
Newsgroups: net.news
Title: Re: Getting tired of the fate of net.general
Article-I.D.: cornell.4341
Posted: Sun Apr 24 16:58:12 1983
Received: Mon Apr 25 22:13:49 1983
References: cbosgd.3455

As far as I can tell, Cornell makes a decent effort to run current versions
of software like news.  I'm pretty sure we are running something like 2.8
or 2.9.  And it doesn't work.  And it has a bad user interface--it won't
sort out anything by topics, which means lots of time spent saying no to
dozens of replies on one topic.

As to why I am so inconsiderate as to post an article instead of a
followup:  there is no way when reading the news to figure out if I've
seen the last article on a given topic.  I think it is slightly more
considerate to at least read through the articles to avoid posting
redundant followups if somebody else has also touched on the topic.
But if I do this, there is no way to post a followup--it's too late.
The news software presents the articles in whatever order it sees fit
without telling me that this is the last article on some topic, so I
am left to guess whether it is appropriate to use the `f' key or to
wait.  I suppose I could just hit `f' when I get the urge instead of
waiting.  Is that better?

I'm afraid that I might not be qualified to participate in this discussion
since I am only one of the folks who actually uses the software and doesn't
know the details of how it works.  I was hoping that some consideration 
would be given to the suggestion that related articles be grouped together
so it would be easier to filter the news.  Instead, the only replies
suggest that Cornell does an inept job of keeping its software up to date
(which is not true).

Hal