Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!peregrine!elroy!ames!mailrus!bbn!inmet!ishmael!inmet!justin
From: justin@inmet
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: article sizes (was: Usenet volume)
Message-ID: <128400002@inmet>
Date: 22 Dec 88 17:15:00 GMT
References: <10813@swan.ulowell.edu>
Lines: 44
Nf-ID: #R:swan.ulowell.edu:-1081300:inmet:128400002:000:2175
Nf-From: inmet!justin    Dec 22 12:15:00 1988


/* Written  9:44 pm  Dec 20, 1988 by berleant@cs.utexas.edu.UUCP in inmet:news.admin */
[...]
Is there any chance of dynamic creation (and deletion) of newsgroups?
I have in mind that anyone can create a newsgroup for the purpose
of carrying on a discussion of a certain topic. Then, newsgroups 
that do not have any postings for some length of time will be
automatically deleted by net wide rmgroup commands (or whatever).
[...]
Dan
berleant@cs.utexas.edu
/* End of text from inmet:news.admin */

Hear, hear! I've been working on a pile of suggestions following this line
for quite some time, and haven't had the time to work it into a reasonable
format. In *very* brief, how about:

-- Dynamically created and deleted newsgroups, which can be created by any
   sysadmin (on the theory that sysadmins at least slightly understand what
   they're doing), with software written to automatically delete a group
   after it has been dormant for some length of time.

-- The concept of Topics within newsgroups. *Anyone* can create a topic, to
   provide a home for whatever subject they want to discuss. Again, these
   would be automatically deleted when they went dormant. Also, one could
   simply kill a topic, instead of having to go to elaborate lengths to
   make sure that all relevant threads are killed.

-- Eliminate crossposting *as it now exists*. Instead, enable users to
   subscribe only to a particular topic within a newsgroup, instead of
   the whole group. When something that would today be crossposted comes
   up, one would pick the best home, create a topic for it, post a 
   tickler on the other relevant groups giving the topic and newsgroup,
   and just work within the topic. The software would have to have the
   ability to, at user request, automatically subscibe to the topic
   that the tickler points out.

There are a number of other points I've been thinking about, but these
are the ones that could probably achieve the greatest good. I'm not sure
that there is any way to do this without a trauma on the order of that
of The Great Renaming, but the structural problems of the Net are real,
and aren't going away...

				-- Justin du Coeur