Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!ukma!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Status of comp.sys.mac reorg: 2/21/90
Message-ID: <38871@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 22 Feb 90 19:45:36 GMT
References: <38851@apple.Apple.COM> <77475@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Organization: Fictional Reality: where your dreams can come true
Lines: 61

rd_francis@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu writes:

>>Proposal 4: renaming comp.sys.mac.hypercard to comp.sys.mac.apps.hypercard.
>I suspect this one will fail, due to a large number of indifferent
>people, myself included.

I tend to agree -- but I don't think it's my place to make the final
decision. I plan on posting my 'recommended' votes as a separate article
when I do the call for votes, but I don't want to go too far pushing
whatever hidden agenda I might have, if I in fact have one.

>Perhaps I am wrong about this, but what is the basic criteria for
>spin-off newsgroups?  My impression has been a lot of existing traffic
>is needed.

That's actually an old USENET 'requirement' that's been disproven time and
time again (rec.radio.shortwave being the latest example). A lot of people,
myself included, thought it was true for a long time. The facts don't back
it up.

>Three existing newsgroups cover the territory of 3 of the
>above (rec.games.misc, comp.protocol.appletalk, comp.virus).

The question at hand is whether we want to create groups specifically for
the mac subset of the groups in question. The answer is a definite 'maybe'.
There is some minor overlap between comp.protocol.appletalk and
c.s.m.apps.comm, but the primary focus of the latter is things like Red
Ryder, Microphone, BBSes and the like. It could also be used for CL/1 and
the various networking stuff that may or may not be appletalk related, but I
don't see a lot of overlap.

As far as games and virus, I personally would prefer leaving the messages in
comp.virus, but I don't feel it's my place to make that decision -- I'm
leaving it in the hands of the voters. As to games, rec.games.misc is large
and noisy enough that I think a mac-specific game group is a reasonable
idea, with the added advantage of pulling the game stuff out of c.s.m that
probably should have been in rec.games.misc in the first place but isn't
because the posters are reading the mac groups and not the games groups.

>To expand on a theme in my paragraph above, I strongly suggest that
>when we vote, we at least try to look at each facet of the proposal as
>if it were completely independent of the rest.  Don't just send in a
>blanket "yes" vote because you don't feel like typing in the extra
>characters to vote "abstain" on one part.

I couldn't agree more. The whole point of this multi-vote structure is to
save time and hassle in getting things fixed, not to rubberstamp the
proposal. I'll be disappointed if *everything* on the proposal succeeds, for
the simple fact that I hope I'm putting things on the proposal that are
worth a general vote on but aren't necessarily things people want
implemented (would I call a vote on c.s.m.virus if it weren't part of a
larger vote? No. what about games? Maybe, probably not. But in the larger
context, it's worth giving people a chance to make the decision rather than
choosing for them by action or inaction).

-- 

Chuq Von Rospach   <+>   chuq@apple.com   <+>   [This is myself speaking]

I don't know what's scarier: President Reagan saying he had no inkling of 
his aides doing anything illegal, or an ex-president who uses the word inkling.