Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!usc!rutgers!iuvax!maytag!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: news.admin
Subject: Re: A USENet domain (was Re: Domain Charters)
Message-ID: <103905@looking.on.ca>
Date: 28 Feb 90 05:01:06 GMT
References: <_.W1K12xds8@ficc.uu.net> <1990Feb23.202301.3363@everexn.uucp> <38951@apple.Apple.COM> <11012@saturn.ADS.COM> <38983@apple.Apple.COM> <103276@looking.on.ca> <15208@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 54
Class: rebuttal

In article <15208@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes:
>But if you want to read about news administration
>issues, read THIS group.  And newsgroup naming is an important
>administration issue.

May I be so bold as to ask why?  Let's not just run around asserting that
it's important or that it isn't.  The vocal minority that posts here does,
I concede, act as though it's important.  But that doesn't make it so.

So I'll show why it isn't important:

o) There are many other conferencing networks out there.  The ones that I
know of don't debate naming, or consider it worthy of debate.  Somebody
whose job it is picks names, and to be honest, I never see complaints.
In fact, nobody even discusses it.  The names are there.  People use them.
There would be nothing wrong if other nets considered names 50% of
administration and USENET was 70%.  But USENET is 70% and most everybody else
is 1%.  That's wrong.

o) The names don't mean a lot, once they are picked.  I hear people saying,
"we can't call it fish because not all aquaria have fish -- it's too
restrictive."  Are they joking?  What network have they been reading?  USENET
is full of tangents and people discussing astrophysics in rec.humor.  And
you're worried that it will somehow be illegal to talk aquatic plants in
a fish group?  Get real!

o) The distribution is important, but it is the decision of the individual
sites.  The name should not be the distribution, and surprise, surprise,
in spite of what many people *think*, it isn't any more.  Most sites with
free links -- even the uunet <-> mcsun link -- pass all groups now.  Sites
that cut, cut more finely than the hierarchies allow.  If a group gets high
volume and I don't want it, I don't carry it, no matter what hierarchy it's
in.

o) Some things just aren't done well by committee and votes.  Names are one.
Would you pick C keywords by voting on it?  No -- you delegate a small
group (or better yet, 1 or 2 people) and let them decide.  You are assured
they will do no worse than a committee of 500, and it's very likely they'll
do better.

Names do have an importance, but like street names in town, you don't have
a referendum on them.  And they do get debated, but you don't see city
council spending half its time on naming the streets.

They are just labels, and all that matters is that they be reasonably
clear and consistent.

-------------

So there's some of my case.  Now you show me why the planets will fly off
the sun if we don't engage in more megabytes of debate about what name is
right for this group or that group.
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473