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Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!dave
From: dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman)
Newsgroups: net.cog-eng
Subject: Re: A good human-factored user interface for postnews
Message-ID: <2551@utcsrgv.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 23-Oct-83 16:29:41 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.2551
Posted: Sun Oct 23 16:29:41 1983
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Oct-83 18:43:12 EDT
References: <572@houxm.UUCP>
Organization: The Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto
Lines: 27

Distribution is indeed important, Mel (houxm!mel). Suppose
I want to announce something of interest to all rogue players
on my machine? There's obviously no need for a local "games.rogue"
newsgroup, and I don't want to annoy the other users by posting
to "general". So, I use net.games.rogue with distribution "local".
(This is a real example, by the way.)

Or suppose I want to inform everyone in Toronto who might be
interested that Monty Python is on Channel 17 every week.
Again, tor.general would reach people who aren't interested in
TV. So I use net.tv with distribution "tor". And so on.

In a few cases - "general", "wanted", and so on, there are already
newsgroups set up within the sub-area. I see stuff posted to
"net.wanted,bell.wanted,btl.wanted,nj.wanted"
all the time, which seems to me to be totally unnecessary. Generally
these articles are ones which should have stayed in NJ in the first
place. With a properly designed "Distribution" prompt, these regional
groups shouldn't even be necessary. Just post to net.wanted with Distribution
"nj". Perhaps some newsgroups such as net.wanted should interpret a null
reply to the Distribution prompt as being much more local than the whole
net, and tell the user so.

Dave Sherman
Toronto
-- 
 {cornell,decvax,ihnp4,linus,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!lsuc!dave