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From: chapman@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Brent Chapman)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: RN wishlist
Message-ID: <3215@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Sat, 18-Apr-87 13:42:36 EST
Article-I.D.: jade.3215
Posted: Sat Apr 18 13:42:36 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 19-Apr-87 17:47:58 EST
References: <862@chinet.UUCP> <522@omen.UUCP> <18445@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1568@munnari.oz>
Sender: usenet@jade.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: chapman@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Brent Chapman)
Organization: UNIXversity of California at Berkeley
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In article <1568@munnari.oz> kre@munnari.oz (Robert Elz) writes:

>In article <18445@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU
>(Erik E. Fair) writes:

>> The proper way to handle digests is not to have them at all.

>If you view a digest as being solely a transport hack then I agree.
>And indeed, some digests are no more than that 

>However, other digests are much more than the sum of their articles,
>when AI-LIST started being sent to usenet undigested I unsubscribed
>within a day or two, before then I had at least glanced at each issue.

>I would hate to see RISKS or a few of the others split, SUN-SPOTS
>and a bunch of others like that I wouldn't mind at all.

In general, I tend to agree with Erik on issues relating to news and
mail and networking and such, but this time, I must disagree, for about
the same reasons as Robert Elz.

There are certainly digest that are much more than just a dump of the
moderators inbox every week.  The example with which I'm most familiar
is the RISKS digest; Peter G. Neumann consistently does an excellent
job of moderating the discussions, keeping them on track, and killing
them when they begin to lose relevance (even if he does have an abhorrent
penchant for puns  :-).

I think part of the problem may be that "digests" are an artifact of
the internet; many (most?) of the "digest" newsgroups are actually
internet mail digest gatewayed into USENET (much of that gatewaying
is done at ucbvax, here at Berkeley, and maintained by Erik, so I'm
sure he's intimately aware of all this).  Looked at from the standpoint
of the internet, digests make a lot of sense.  Without them, you end up
with lots of little, mostly irrelevant, messages in your mailbox every
day.

The question is, should these internet digests be "undigested" at 
whatever point they are gatewayed into the USENET?  I'd have to say 
that's a decision to be made on a digest-by-digest basis; as pointed
out earlier, I certainly wouldn't want this to happen to RISKS; others,
I'm not so sure about.


Brent
--
Brent Chapman

chapman@mica.berkeley.edu	or	ucbvax!mica!chapman