Xref: utzoo comp.edu:1696 news.groups:6622
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!visdc!jiii
From: jiii@visdc.UUCP (John E Van Deusen III)
Newsgroups: comp.edu,news.groups
Subject: Re: Any interest in an 'education' group (was Re: The subject matter of this newsgroup [comp.edu])
Summary: Accessible to students?
Message-ID: <247@visdc.UUCP>
Date: 28 Dec 88 01:12:13 GMT
References: <552@ur-cc.UUCP> <12932@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Organization: VI Software Development Co., Boise, Idaho
Lines: 14

Having 'n'ed through an astounding number of articles that have been
cross-posted to almost every sci group but are, in fact, items of
interest only to students, I conclude that many students are only
allowed to post articles to sci newsgroups.  Creating another news group
that is inaccessible to its constituency will not solve the problem.

A new version of the news software is needed, with provision for article
selection PRIOR to data transmission.  Instead of the network being
"flooded" with material that the originator thought was relevant to the
needs of the recipient, material should be transmitted only if
requested.  The standard forms of selection criteria such as KWIC and
citation index could be augmented by a polling scheme to collect
statistics on the articles read and what the thousands of people who
spent money transmitting this material thought about it.