Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!porthos.rutgers.edu!webber From: webber@porthos.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: Too much for the reader? (was: Re: Unbiased moderator volunteers) Message-ID: Date: 2 Jul 88 07:16:22 GMT References: <2805@rpp386.UUCP> <28.UUL1.3#935@aocgl.UUCP> <4542@gryphon.CTS.COM> <394@teletron.UUCP> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 40 In article <394@teletron.UUCP>, andrew@teletron.UUCP (Andrew Scott) writes: > In article , webber@porthos.rutgers.edu (Bob Webber) writes: > > In article <385@teletron.UUCP>, andrew@teletron.UUCP (Andrew Scott) writes: > > >... > > > The net is just too big to handle as a *reader*. > > > > You know, I was down at the Library Of Congress the other day and noticed > > that they had more books than I could read in a lifetime (even if I > > stopped reading the net). They have just gotten way too big to handle > > as a *reader*. > > Cute analogy, but there is a major difference between the Library Of Congress > and USENET. When I go to a library, I use the card catalog system to find > exactly what I'm looking for. On USENET, things aren't nearly so organized. Obviously you have never been down to the Library of Congress. The card catalog is about as useful as newsgroup names are. To find what you want in a research library is not a simple matter of ``looking it up in the card catalog.'' USENET is beautifully organized. Each message is available for any sort of online analysis you want to apply to it. > One could scan for subject lines or keywords, but very few people bother to > add a keywords line and many subject lines are undescriptive. > > With the current news software, a reader is left with having to scan through > newsgroups, "n"-ing over articles that don't look interesting. I wouldn't > use a library at all if I had to do the analogous operation: walk down the > aisles looking at the title of each book. Actually, walking down the isles is the way I find MOST useful in using a library. However, on any unix system there are plenty of automatic tools for searching and processing text files. You could let your cpu do alot of sifting for you. Ignore the headers -- process the raw text! Ask other users on your system to flag articles they found interesting. Summarize discussions that you found helpful and keep the summaries available. Don't kill the flow of the net just because YOU don't have time to swim in it. ----- BOB (webber@athos.rutgers.edu ; rutgers!athos.rutgers.edu!webber)