Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!caip!seismo!lll-crg!styx!nike!cad!ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!ism780c!dougl From: dougl@ism780c.UUCP (Douglas J Leavitt) Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.news.adm Subject: Re: Suggestions for talk.* groups follows Message-ID: <2350@ism780c.UUCP> Date: Tue, 27-May-86 13:40:15 EDT Article-I.D.: ism780c.2350 Posted: Tue May 27 13:40:15 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 30-May-86 04:49:26 EDT References: <5500@alice.uUCp> <2157@cbosgd.UUCP> Reply-To: dougl@ism780c.UUCP (Douglas J Leavitt) Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Santa Monica, CA Lines: 62 Xref: watmath net.news.group:5768 net.news.adm:756 In article <2157@cbosgd.UUCP> mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) writes: >In article <5500@alice.uUCp> jj@alice.UUCP writes (tounge in cheek, I hope): ... >It has been suggested that we ought to use this upheaval to complete >the reorganization, dividing the rest of net.all into a few more top >level categories (tech, sci, rec, and club have been mentioned as some >possible categories, for example.) In this sense, perhaps we should >include any group in talk which fits that description better than any >of the others. I would like to second this suggestion about total reorganization and bring to light some of my reasons why this would be a good idea. The suggestion of total reorganization has come up again and again over the course of the last few years. Usually the person making the suggestion gets the response "It would be nice but ...." and sooner or later the subject gets dropped. As I see it, unless we do something different than net.* the talk groups will only be a stop gap measure till some later date. Consider the problems that will occur in the next N years, when we have X more different micros, Y types of workstations, Z new recreational sports (net.rec.photon??), Q new game groups etc... Sooner or later the net and the backbone of that time will have to reorganize again. What will do at that time when the backbones that aren't carrying the talk.* groups fill up because there are 16 micro groups now, and 20 game groups etc. Since there is going to be a reorganization anyways, why not get it over with now. That way overseas transmissions can start sending tech, sci, micro say, and leave talk, rec, club on the mainland if they so desire. Also those sites with less than M megabytes of disk space can put tech and micro on all the machines and all the groups on the major dispatching machine. That way my readers can read some groups anyplace and any group on the machine with the storage to handle it. All of the facilities to handle this conversion already exist and have for some time. 2.10.2 news has aliasing, so the net groups could stand up to a massive conversion, and if a standardized alias file were distributed before the conversion, it would not be painful. True not all systems are running 2.10.2 news yet, but lets think of it this way 2.10.[12] has been out for what 2-3 years now?, and if people have not yet converted they probably deserve what they get (No Flames Please, at least not on the net too much traffic already). >I think what will wind up happening is that the list of groups in talk >will be viewed as "here are the groups that a fairly large part of the >net views as nearly impossible to justify their cost." Trying to decide >what goes into that list is difficult, and the metrics we've used are >basically high cost, low readership, and low content. This process is >imperfect, but we're doing the best we can. With input from the net, >we'll do better than we would otherwise. However, the process is >unavoidably political and compromises do occur. The backbones are not the only people that have to justify news costs etc., although they have a bigger time of it. By reorganizing, many sites will have an easier time of doing so, even if it does mean dropping a whole discussion area such as talk or rec or what have you. Douglas J Leavitt { sdcrdcf, ima!ism780 }!ism780c!dougl