Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!watcgl!awpaeth
From: awpaeth@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Alan Wm Paeth)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: SAO Part01/49
Message-ID: <7298@watcgl.waterloo.edu>
Date: 13 Dec 88 22:15:35 GMT
References: <1249@fig.bbn.com> <1280@vsi1.UUCP> <151@cjsa.WA.COM>
Reply-To: awpaeth@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Alan Wm Paeth)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 32

Some observations on large postings and the SAO:

(1) the data totals 1.46Meg in UUCP form, AND NOT 3Meg. To achieve this
    small size I designed and included a custom (en/de)coder in Part01.

(2) I chose to release the data to the moderator given the heavy demand at
    both private and professional sites for this proven scientific dataset.

(3) I considered "dribbling" the data out personally, eg weekly postings of the
    stars currently overhead at midnight, for one year. Lacking archives, it
    was decided that this would potentially generate e-mail traffic of the "do
    you have posting X?" type that might exceed the traffic of a net posting.
    Ironically, a dribble scheme would now be many months underway.

(4) Ideas toward distribution were solicited from sci.astro (mid year); they
    suggested the net posting. Rich and I felt that 48 parts was on the large
    side; but again, semi-functional 20-part Postscript interpreters and even
    60-part window managers of limited portability are not unknown. Rich viewed
    the SAO as an interesting "test case" in terms of large postings (as do I).

(5) The posting was delayed many months until I suggested that interested
    parties on sci.astro contact Rich directly, threby indicating demand.
    Presumably the response was overwhelming enough to tip the scales.

In the end, it seems that the recent number of positive comments "re: SAO"
closely balance out the negative ones -- from this I infer that the posting
limit for comp.sources.unix seems to be between one and two meg or at about
the 35-60 part range, irrespective of content.

    /Alan Paeth
    Computer Graphics Laboratory
    University of Waterloo