Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!hadron!inco!mack
From: mack@inco.UUCP (Dave Mack)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: News.announce.newuser seems to be empty
Message-ID: <2457@inco.UUCP>
Date: 22 Aug 88 15:16:19 GMT
References: <20421@watmath.waterloo.edu> <1070@cfa214.cfa250.harvard.edu> <13498@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <4712@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Reply-To: mack@inco.UUCP (Dave Mack)
Organization: McDonnell Douglas-INCO, McLean, VA
Lines: 51

In article <4712@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford) writes:
[...]
>
>...of course, that doesn't include the 2 month period this
>summer when I stopped posting the items and only 3 people
>noticed.  This whole debate may be moot -- the group may not
>be worth continuing.

NO! Until we have a better system for educating new users,
n.a.n is the only mechanism for training them, other than
harassing sysadmins. With several new systems coming online every week
and several thousand students discovering the net every fall,
this is an important mechanism for reducing the chaos level.

I agree with Allison and weemba: there should be an automated
(dare I say enforced?) mechanism for training the newbies. It
should be built into the newsreaders. When someone lights up a
newsreader, and no .newsrc exists in their home directory, the
software should go into training mode and not leave it until
the user has shown at least a rudimentary knowledge of the
net.

Obviously, there are major logistical problems with this, given
the spectrum of news versions and newsreaders out there. 

I'm willing to attempt to hack a training mechanism into the
newsreaders (readnews/vnews, vn, rn; not Gnews, I'm hopeless 
at Lisp) but I have questions:

Is there any point in doing this? Is the idea worthwhile?

Is anyone who is more familiar with the software willing to
take on the project?

Would it be better to try to produce a "merged" newsreader and
attempt to get it accepted as the standard, rather than trying
to patch all of the existing systems?

Are there any major new versions of newsreaders in the works,
aside from rn 5.0? C news? 3.0?

Should the training consist of a tutorial, or should we go to 
the extreme of a programmed training system with quizzes?

Am I completely insane?

I would appreciate any suggestions.

-- 
Dave Mack
mack@inco.uu.net