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From: gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: Temporary discussions
Message-ID: <2826@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 22-Feb-86 17:13:12 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.2826
Posted: Sat Feb 22 17:13:12 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 24-Feb-86 21:36:14 EST
References: <1018@burl.UUCP> <875@masscomp.UUCP> <736@ttrdc.UUCP> <820@decuac.UUCP> <532@hoptoad.uucp> <54@cad.UUCP>
Reply-To: gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett)
Organization: Amdahl Corp, UTS Products Group
Lines: 42
Summary: net.tmp.*, a great idea!

In article <54@cad.UUCP> grady@cad.UUCP (Steven Grady) writes:

>                              ... Perhaps what is needed is a  set
> of newsgroups, perhaps net.temp.*  or just temp.*, which  existed
> for the sole purpose of redirecting a temporary surge of articles
> from an inappropriate  newsgroup....
>                                      ... No one would have reason
> to complain,  because  those  who  think it  should  be  a  real,
> permanent newsgroup  will definitely  have their  claims  (goals,
> hopes, aspirations,  whatever) verified  or contradicted  by  the
> volume in the group after, say, one month.

I think this is a great idea!  So much political bru-ha-ha has
developed around creating new newsgroups that a convention for
``temporary'' newsgroups would resolve the problem from both sides, in
addition to providing public demonstrations of the need or lack of it
by such groups.

An expected objection here is the addition of work this adds to
the News Administrator, who must rememeber to remove the temp
newsgroups after a conventional amount of time (say 3 months),
but the work there is trivial, and I'm sure a 'rmgroup' would
circulate as the time called for it.

I think Steven mentioned a time limit of 1 month.  I think this
is too short and recommend 3 months.  By the end of that much
time the newsgroup would have either established its need for
perminanace or fulfilled the needs of its readers/supporters
for the time being.

[ This sort of design echos Alvin Toffler's concept of
  "ad-hocracy" -- establishing political/administrative groups
  on an as-needed basis, then disposing of them when they are done.
  I think this is *exactly* what is to be expected in societies
  where technology makes such relatively rapid change convienient. ]

My suggestion for the name of such groups is net.tmp.* (mimicking
the standard Unix /tmp file system name).
-- 
Gordon A. Moffett		...!{ihnp4,seismo,hplabs}!amdahl!gam

Inferior people should not be employed.