A while back someone suggested starting a comp.lang.lisp.advocacy group. Has anyone taken any action in that regard? I seem to be killing more and more threads in this group.
ktur...@pug1.sprocketshop.com (Kenneth P. Turvey) writes:
> A while back someone suggested starting a comp.lang.lisp.advocacy group. > Has anyone taken any action in that regard? I seem to be killing more > and more threads in this group.
Then just keep killing them.
To start a new group you'll need at least 100 votes for it, and the votes in favor of the new group will have to outnumber the votes against it by either 1:1 or 2:1 or something. [Can't remember.]
And if the vote actually goes through then that isn't a guarantee that all news administrators are actually going to carry it. And it certainly isn't a guarantee that the new group will have even 1/1000th the traffic of comp.lang.lisp. [Try subscribing to comp.org.lisp-users.]
It's better to vote for moderation of an existing group when things get out of hand. [Like comp.ai used to be.] But c.l.l is faaaaaar from needing that, since intelligent people that are knowledgable of Lisp still routinely participate in discussion and are not drowned out in the noise, and off-topic threads are usually not labeled as having anything to do with Lisp, or are consistently labeled so they are easy to kill/ignore.
Conclusion:
* A new group would never happen.
* Moderation of the existing group is unnecessary.
* Moderation of the existing group would IMNSHO ruin it.
* Kenneth P. Turvey | A while back someone suggested starting a comp.lang.lisp.advocacy group. | Has anyone taken any action in that regard?
why wait for someone else? you are free to take action yourself, now.
| I seem to be killing more and more threads in this group.
but why is that a problem? are you dissatisfied with the articles that are left after killing threads? are you dissatisfied with the fact that people routinely discuss issues _they_ think are relevant? what if they're right? that would mean you've missed something important.
and how would people be educated to use your new .advocacy newsgroup? are they really involved in .advocacy-like discussions, as seen elsewhere?
On 22 Sep 1999 16:30:20 +0000, Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> wrote:
>* Kenneth P. Turvey >| A while back someone suggested starting a comp.lang.lisp.advocacy group. >| Has anyone taken any action in that regard?
> why wait for someone else? you are free to take action yourself, now.
If someone already had that would be redundant, don't you think? Christopher Barry seems to have been well informed on the topic and after his analysis, I don't see much point in it myself either. The request for information served its purpose.
>| I seem to be killing more and more threads in this group.
> but why is that a problem? are you dissatisfied with the articles that > are left after killing threads? are you dissatisfied with the fact that > people routinely discuss issues _they_ think are relevant? what if > they're right? that would mean you've missed something important.
I'm dissatisfied with the number of off topic articles I have to sort through, yes.
> and how would people be educated to use your new .advocacy newsgroup? > are they really involved in .advocacy-like discussions, as seen elsewhere?
* Kenneth P. Turvey | If someone already had that would be redundant, don't you think?
no. announcing that you do something is the only way to discover any redundancy. asking people if they are doing something fails to trigger responses in people who do it and see you as an insufficient pest when you just ask, or in people who do it and would rather be done with it rather than answer lots of silly questions.
| I'm dissatisfied with the number of off topic articles I have to sort | through, yes.
this doesn't make sense if you are killing so many threads.
* Erik Naggum | and how would people be educated to use your new .advocacy newsgroup?
(you didn't answer this, so I repeat it.) this remains the crucial point in any "let's make those people go somewhere else"-proposals, and it's where they all fall flat on their face. a newgroup control message does not propagate to the people using the medium. in order for them to work, a lot of social activity needs to be going on before and after their creation to cause people to post elsewhere, and that means the people using the medium face exactly the same problem they do when some other people ignorant of the technology propose to "move" discussions, which means that old participants need to read another newsgroup, probably with much less traffic relevant to them, entirely new people won't know the old context and will cause solved issues to be reopened and will bring people who have no idea about what's going to post lots of articles to which yet more ignorants will shriek "post it somewhere else!".
in other words, the cure is worse than the illness. a little reflection on how things work would have made this fairly obvious to anyone.
a new newsgroup works when people have a fairly solid reason to be _attracted_ to it.
> A while back someone suggested starting a comp.lang.lisp.advocacy group. > Has anyone taken any action in that regard? I seem to be killing more > and more threads in this group.
This would not work. See for instance the comp.lang.clos group. Nobody post to it even for CLOS/MOP related questions. Another reason is that off topic threads generally start with a content suitable to c.l.l and then diverge after a while.
On 22 Sep 1999 23:19:08 +0000, Erik Naggum <e...@naggum.no> wrote:
>* Kenneth P. Turvey >| If someone already had that would be redundant, don't you think?
> no. announcing that you do something is the only way to discover any > redundancy. asking people if they are doing something fails to trigger > responses in people who do it and see you as an insufficient pest when > you just ask, or in people who do it and would rather be done with it > rather than answer lots of silly questions.
It had already been discussed on this group... My post triggered exactly the kind of response that I was looking for, an informative one. Additionally it triggered you responses... you win some, you lose some.
I'm not going to get drawn into a long drawn out thread on just the kind of topic that I would normally kill. Enjoy your ego war with someone else.
We all enter this world in the same way: naked; screaming; soaked in blood. But if you live your life right, that kind of thing doesn't have to stop there. -- Dana Gould
* Kenneth P. Turvey | It had already been discussed on this group... My post triggered | exactly the kind of response that I was looking for, an informative one. | Additionally it triggered you responses... you win some, you lose some.
nice show of prejudice at work, but do you think you would be able to recognize an informative message from me in the first place?
| I'm not going to get drawn into a long drawn out thread on just the kind | of topic that I would normally kill. Enjoy your ego war with someone | else.
amusing. you just couldn't help yourself, could you? it's actually stupidity like this that keeps the flame wars alive. grasp that, and you're in for a real surprise as to cause and effect.
