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Path: utzoo!linus!security!genrad!grkermit!masscomp!clyde!floyd!harpo!seismo!hao!hplabs!oliveb!toml
From: toml@oliveb.UUCP (Dave Long)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: new network news structure
Message-ID: <242@oliveb.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Dec-83 17:21:33 EST
Article-I.D.: oliveb.242
Posted: Wed Dec 28 17:21:33 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 31-Dec-83 11:47:16 EST
Lines: 37


    The network news has grown a lot since the structure was thought up, and
while we may not need a new structure now, soon the situation will warrant it.
The network news was an improvement over using mail(1), but now with all the
users and ideas being exchanged, it is beginning to outgrow itself.
    What I propose is that we should start considering a better structure for
the news, so we will have an idea ready if we ever do need a new structure.
What follows is a description of a mythical 'Othernews', which I propose as an
alternate structure.  I don't know how hard it would be to implement, but take
a look at it, and if you feel you like another structure, by all means post it.

				OTHERNEWS
    Othernews is based on a loose tree structure.  Each time a new discussion
comes up, an appropriate sub-branch is created for it, and when it ends, it
disappears.  Discussions are not limited to the number of branches that they
can be a sub-branch of, so there are no 'split' dicussions like there are in
the standard network news.
    The othernews interface is designed for handling this.  There are two
modes for reading the news.  In the first mode, the tree-scanning one, the user
is allowed to move about the tree, and whenever he hits a branch, a list of
discussions going on it its sub-branches is displayed.  This way users only read
the discussions that they want to read.  The second, or reading mode, is be
based on mail(1).  The user is shown a list of tthe titles of the articles in
that branch, and then reads only the ones that he is interested in.
    When someone posts something to othernews, he is prompted for the branch-
list, and if it is an existing branch, then the article is posted to that
branch.  Otherwise, a new sub-branch is formed, and the person is prompted for a
title to that discussion, which all of the parents and up of that branch are
given, so they can add the discussion name and path onto their discussion list.
When the discussion stops, the branch disappears, and if the parent has no other
sub-branches, the parent also disappears, and so on up, so only active branches
are present at any time.

					Thanks for reading this!
					    Dave Long
				    {ucbvax,decvax}!decwrl!ios!oliveb!toml