Xref: utzoo news.groups:2869 news.admin:1766
Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin
Subject: Re: sniff the wind folks!
Keywords: why?
Message-ID: <1480@looking.UUCP>
Date: 14 Mar 88 09:24:41 GMT
References: <3458@cbmvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 73

In article <3458@cbmvax.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes:
>Does anyone else out there think this group a day rate of new
>group vote proposals is out of control?  Do you think that party
>will last forever?

Problem is it's under too much control.  The rate is far too low right
now.  We waste megs of net bandwidth arguing about groups, collecting
votes etc. when this group (news.groups) really shouldn't exist.

In the old days (I'm talking 1982 when this first came up) the main excuse
I heard for not creating groups was that the software couldn't handle
an arbitrary number.

Over 5 years later, this problem is still there, and it's a major one.

There are a number of people out there who feel that, even if the software
were fixed to avoid a hard group limit (or limits where some costs go up
greatly with the number of groups) that we should still be heavily
restrictive on the number of groups.  The reason given is that it
would get too confusing.

I've always disagreed with this, but there's never been any feel about
what the rest of the net thinks.

The modified version of what I proposed all those years ago says that
article classification should go like this:

A) A limited number of general classifications.  Probably limited to
   around 100, but possibly quite a lot less.
   Call this the "newsgroup," for historical reasons.

   Examples: Games, Sport, Sex, Politics, Relgion.
   On this net, otherwise specific topics like "Unix", "IBM-PC" etc.
   might also qualify.

B) An unlimited number of sub-classifications.  Anybody can create a
   sub-classification, subject to the approval of a group of moderators,
   who serve only to ensure proper naming and non-duplication.
   Call these "forums" or "keywords".


C) An arbitrary number of "topics".  Every new (non-followup) article would
   be given a topic, just a few words long.  Followups would be grouped
   under the topic.

D) A distinct subject for each article.  No "Re:" -- the topic provides
   that.  Each poster would be required to put a distinct subject on
   the article, or perhaps a summary.

---------------------
The hierarchy means there is no difficulty understanding what's going
on, or finding the discussion you want.  The only argument that could
take place would be over the creation of a new master category.
As long as a misc master category existed (and it would) there would
be no stopping the creation of a group.  If one saw a handful of related
new forums in the "misc" category, it would be obvious that we needed
a new master category.  Nobody need tell anybody, though, as forums
would not be forced to exist within a master category, it would just
be a matter of convenience.

-----------------------
This isn't a lot different from what I proposed ages ago, although it
does fix some flaws.  But believe me, it's better than the current
system, which is very flawed.

Imagine, some people go around saying a group has to have a certain
volume to justify it!  You ask me, groups should be required to be
BELOW a certain volume (and not a high one) to justify their existence.

We need more, quieter, saner forums, not fewer, noisier ones that everybody
argues about the name of.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473