Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!towfigh
From: towfigh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Mark Mehdi Towfigh)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Permanent Postings
Keywords: Files Common Questions Space Time Savings
Message-ID: <6022@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 1 Feb 89 05:47:59 GMT
Reply-To: towfigh@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Mark Mehdi Towfigh)
Organization: Funny Guys of America, Inc.
Lines: 65

This matter may have been discussed before, and I just may have
never noticed it (believe me, I have been looking around), but I
think a new way needs to be invented in order to address commonly
asked questions.  Unfortunately, I cannot think of such a
modification that will not require the modification of existing news
software, but here goes.

I have noticed increasingly in the newsgroups I read that a large
number of postings involve material, discussions, and points which
have been rehashed time and again.  Postings by people on these same
topics waste bandwidth, make it difficult to read high-volume
newsgroups, and anger participants.

While I believe that news.announce.newusers "Answers to Frequently
Asked Questions" is a move in the right direction, responding to
this trend, I am wondering if it might not even help more to attach
a set of files, or "permanent postings" to each newsgroup, which
people would (either voluntarily or perhaps, with news software,
involuntarily) have to read upon subscription to a newsgroup.

The reason I think this is a good idea is that there is a lot of
specific knowledge related to each newsgroup which does not need to
be re-discussed every 5 months.  Famous examples include:  families
of jokes in rec.humor, discussions on the existence of God in
talk.religion.misc, or "how to un-rotate" rot13'd articles.

The main question which remains for me on this is how to implement
it properly.  For example, who should summarize the discussion of
the word "hopefully" so that sci.lang can move ahead unclogged?
Perhaps a volunteer editor, subject to a vote, could draft such
"permanent postings" and then later accept modifications, just as
Gene Spafford currently does with some of his postings (which right
now he must re-post all the time, instead of updating the "permanent
posting".)

After the start-up time, which admittedly would be difficult,
changes to "permposts" could be in the form of diffs, just as some
semi-permanent posts (like the list of active newsgroups) are
maintained for sysadmins today.  Perhaps archived short programs,
including the news software itself, could then become part of
permposts, making distributions of changes to such popular programs
faster and easier.  This would then consolidate a lot of the disk
space currently used in many places to store such postings.

At the simplest level, this idea could consist of a one- or two-page
introduction file for each group, which could outline (in more than
the one-sentence description in the "List of Active Newsgroups") the
stated purpose of the group, who reads it, and topics commonly
discussed.  When changes are made to "permposts", the articles could
become unread again so that long-time users could be kept
up-to-date, too.

This is an idea which I have only recently thought of, and is thus
not well-formed.  My only request is that in its discussion, the
focus should be on the idea itself, not the specific implementation
suggestions I have outlined above.  The question is:  should a
facility for postings permanently attached to newsgroups be created?

Hope this isn't drivel,
Mark
-- 
===============================================================================
Mark Towfigh    BITNET: TOWFIGH@PUCC    Internet: towfigh@phoenix.princeton.edu

  "The Earth is but one Country, and Mankind its Citizens" -- Baha'u'llah