Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!lll-winken!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!pacbell!well!fico2!everexn!karen
From: karen@everexn.uucp (Karen Valentino)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: The Topic that wouldn't go away (re: sci vs. talk)
Keywords: Objectivism, philosophy, sci.*
Message-ID: <1990Feb5.011200.13501@everexn.uucp>
Date: 5 Feb 90 01:12:00 GMT
References: <3284@iitmax.IIT.EDU> <3285@iitmax.IIT.EDU> <9442@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <7346@tank.uchicago.edu> <1990Feb1.005817.1786@everexn.uucp> <38268@apple.Apple.COM>
Organization: Everex Systems, Inc.
Lines: 52

chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:

>As the person who long ago sponsored the creation of sci, I'd like to simply
>state (again) for the record that I think in retrospect it was a really
>stupid idea on my part. I think that the reality of sci.* matches nothing at
>all what we hoped for it when we created it.

For this, you receive 1 attaperson.  (I don't usually bring up my
mistakes, and I admire those who do.)

>The best thing to do is not try to fix sci.*, but to get rid of it. Merge
>the existing groups into the rest of the structure in appropriate places,
>using misc as a top level domain (one thing I don't understand is why people
>don't think of putting things in misc more often). 

This, I disagree with.  Sci is useful.  If the purpose of the top level 
domain names is to provide a way to group newsgroups together which are 
similar in nature, then misc is pretty useless, IMO.  I'm much more 
inclined to create hum, and possibly move any appropriate newsgroups over 
to it from sci.  To me, "miscellaneous" means that a subject is so much 
not linked to *anything* that it just *has* to be kept off by itself,
lumped together with a bunch of *other* things that don't go with anything.  
Maybe I'm thinking of filing--the stuff that goes in a "miscellaneous" file 
is the stuff that absolutely defies any attempt to put it somewhere where
you might have a half a chance of remembering where the hell you filed it.  
Misc has the undesirable potential of being at least as much of a dumping 
ground as talk.  

One thing about a hum domain--it doesn't solve the aquaria dilema
(fish aren't human).  Now, why is it that misc.aquaria was never
suggested?  (Or was it, and I missed it?) 

>Better yet, since talk has traditionally been the 'dumping' ground for
>groups we more or less want to ignore, do away with talk.* completely and
>either get rid of the groups or merge them into the mainline domains. Talk 
>has never been anything more than a convenient way for system administrators
>to easily get rid of a subsection of the net without a lot of hassle. The
>question is: is this really a good idea? Would it be better to just quit
>fooling ourselves and do away with them? Or merge the ones we want to keep
>into the mainline and stop making them second class names? 

Good questions. I'm not as anti-talk as I am pro-hum.  Maybe we could 
have another domain name for talk that speaks to the essential nature of 
talk groups (as I visualize it)--which is discussion of issues.  Is.*?  
Any other ideas out there?

Karen
-- 
   Karen Valentino  <>  Everex North (Everex Systems)  <>  Sebastopol, CA
      karen@everexn.uu.net      ..{apple, well}!fico2!everexn!karen

	  "The best way out is always through."  Robert Frost