Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!emv From: emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: Call For Discussion: comp.sys.mac reorganization Message-ID: Date: 22 Feb 90 05:20:51 GMT References: <38768@apple.Apple.COM> <3996@hub.UUCP> <38783@apple.Apple.COM> <1990Feb20.134921.1410@eplrx7.uucp> Sender: news@math.lsa.umich.edu Organization: University of Michigan Math Dept., Ann Arbor MI. Lines: 63 In-reply-to: leipold@eplrx7.uucp's message of 20 Feb 90 13:49:21 GMT I dunno about the mac reshuffling more I think about it -- I start to get cognitive overload thinking about all these new groups, what they might be named, and how deep these hierarchies are getting. I need an argument that it's better to go down two levels more in the tree rather than just broadening out the existing level. For point of comparison here's other similar breakdowns: mac: digest hardware hypercard programmer binaries appletalk amiga: hardware tech sun: hardware software source sunos windows miscellaneous networks (*) ibmpc: digest net programmer tcp-ip binaries binaries.d sun is the moderated "comp.sys.sun", there's also an "alt.sys.sun". the breakdowns are by the Keywords: on the postings. The categorization is very good, though there have been latency problems. the tcp-ip group is "comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc", a rotten name for the PCIP mailing list. There's no traffic to speak of on ibm.pc.net. the ibmpc binaries group is bad of late having lost a moderator. The good news is the traffic on comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d; it has postings from the top archivists in the pc world (Keith Peterson, Timo Salmi, Russ Nelson) and no shortage of good traffic. I would suggest that a comp.binaries.mac.d would get reasonable traffic quickly and the signal/noise probably wouldn't be bad at all, especially if the sumex folks were to join in. note that the "source" part of comp.sys.sun is really announcements of availability of sources, not the things themselves. In this way it functions much like comp.archives. as far as spinning off "games", note that the current rec.games hierarchy has several different kinds of things in it, e.g. - specific games: bridge chess empire go hack moria rogue - specific game-playing machines: vectrex - general game-playing machines: video - general game types: board frp pbm rpg* - general game-writing people: programmer - a sort of on-line game: trivia - everything else: misc a comp.sys.mac.games (or comp.sys.mac.apps.games, ick) would fit in rec.games.mac via the "vectrex rule" though that's kind of weak at this point. In summary. I suggest discussion of comp.binaries.mac.d, a group along the lines of comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d. By all my estimates it's the right next thing to do, it should clear a vote real easily (I think the mercy rule could kick in on this one), and it's independent of the existing comp.sys.mac reorganization question. --Ed