Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site sjuvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!astrovax!sjuvax!jss From: jss@sjuvax.UUCP (J. Shapiro) Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Re: Re: Information Overload and What We Can Do About It Message-ID: <2286@sjuvax.UUCP> Date: Thu, 3-Oct-85 15:28:02 EDT Article-I.D.: sjuvax.2286 Posted: Thu Oct 3 15:28:02 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 5-Oct-85 15:14:44 EDT References: <10381@ucbvax.ARPA> <3274@nsc.UUCP> <698@tpvax.fluke.UUCP> <251@graffiti.UUCP> <3188@nsc.UUCP> Organization: Haverford College, Haverford, Pa. Lines: 40 Chuq, I didn't see your original posting, but I am familiar with several keyword schemes, and in general, I find they work pretty well. The catches that I see are as follows: 1. All keyword systems in successful use at the moment have some central authority controlling the meaning of keywords and the selection of which keywords properly convey a topic. Otherwise there is no way to reliably search for stuff on a given topic. I don't see how this can be maintained on the net. 2. Given 1., How is a given user to keep informed of the current set of active keywords, particularly in that your article on the Amiga posted under the keywords "micro" and "amiga" would go right through my keyword scan for "cbm" and I probably would not find out about this until too late. 3. Is there a strategy which can be adopted with respect to informing users about new keywords which does not in effect automatically resubscribe the user to a bad newsgroup each time a keyword is invented? I am also not convinced that this solves the newsgroup proliferation problem, as the invention of new keywords which duplicate old ones wil happen all the time, with the net effect of increasing my .newsrc indefinitely. These problems can be solved in a number of ways, and the best seems to be to keep a history on keywords and expire them if they fall below a certain usage level. I am curious, though, how you plane to do the keyword to file mapping. Any information you might provide would be appreciated. Jon -- Jonathan S. Shapiro Haverford College "It doesn't compile pseudo code... What do you expect for fifty dollars?" - M. Tiemann Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com