humanities.lit suggestion
Richard M. Alderson III
level looks reasonable as well. I'd like to address for a moment a
meta-issue.
A number of good suggestions for how the humanities.lit hierarchy have been
set forth, and I propose that the outcomes, such as they are, of the current
discussions, be archived as FAQ postings in humanities.lit.misc and the top-
level humanities.misc, in order to provide future newsgroup proponents some
precedents in naming.
--
Rich Alderson You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
what not.
--J. R. R. Tolkien,
alde...@netcom.com _The Notion Club Papers_
Stephen Joseph Smith
Richard M. Alderson III <alde...@netcom.com> wrote:
>I find myself persuaded by the ".lit" arguments, and the ".authors" third-
>level looks reasonable as well. I'd like to address for a moment a
>meta-issue.
I'd like to address a side issue for a moment. After the push to have the
hierarchy named "humanities.*" rather than "hum.*", can we please not have
a second level called "lit"? Can we please call it
"humanities.literature.*"?
One could argue that "lit" is a much more standard abbreviation for
"literature" than "hum" is for "humanities". Personally, though, "lit" is
below my tolerance level for "how common an abbreviation has to be, and how
bad the alternative is, for the abbreviation to be used in a newsgroup
name".
Thoughts?
- Stephen
Mark Odegard
Alderson III) writes:
>I find myself persuaded by the ".lit" arguments, and the ".authors"
>third-level looks reasonable as well. I'd like to address for a
>moment a meta-issue.
>
>A number of good suggestions for how the humanities.lit hierarchy
>have been set forth, and I propose that the outcomes, such as they
>are, of the current discussions, be archived as FAQ postings in
>humanities.lit.misc and the top-level humanities.misc, in order to
>provide future newsgroup proponents some precedents in naming.
Excellent idea. Seconded. Are you volunteering to be the
Keeper-of-the-FAQ(s)?
Amy Williamson
Could someone forward me this list?
Thank you
.......Amy Thursday, 04/27/95, 03:51
* RM 1.3 02607 * A cynic smells flowers and looks for the casket.
David Wright
#I'd like to address a side issue for a moment. After the push to have the
#hierarchy named "humanities.*" rather than "hum.*", can we please not have
#a second level called "lit"? Can we please call it
#"humanities.literature.*"?
#
#Thoughts?
Agreed. Dnt Abvr8 :-)
With so many thousands of news groups, the clearer the name of each is,
the easier it is for people to read the name and understand it rapidly and
know whether to skip it or read it, (or "subscribe" to it, as many of the
new OLR type news readers call it - and with net growth they may be in the
majority!).
Full long names are much easier to read and comprehend than short
abbreviations, especially to people whose first language is not English,
(remember the net is global).
Hence the strong recommendation against abbreviations in the news group
names FAQ. And that applies even more in the new humanities hierarchy,
where the mistakes of code-mad programmers (comp.dcom and worse) should
not be repeated.
For those who've not read it before:
Guideline on Usenet News Group Names
"To-day we have naming of parts."
This document is intended to be a primer for use by those involved in
creating new Usenet news groups, namely in the comp, sci, soc, rec, news,
misc and talk groups. The same principles may be used with other
hierarchies, but those are beyond the scope of this document.
Usenet news group names are structured, hierarchic, taxonomic but not
definitive. They are intended to help users find what they want and news
administrators manage their systems, to the benefit of their users.
By understanding each of these concepts, you can understand how to
select suitable names for new news groups.
Structured
News group names are structured into parts separated by dots, for
example "rec.pets.dogs". Each part may be up to 14 characters long,
and should consist only of letters, digits and "-", with at least
one letter.
Hierarchic
Names fall into clear hierarchies - for example all computer-related
groups are in comp. Each may be sub-divided into second, third, and
lower level hierarchies, such as sci.physics and comp.sys.sun, by
adding more parts to the basic name. The first part is the most
general (sci or comp), the second more specific, and so on. The
last part completes the actual group name. As each part implies a
further level, words at the same level are included into one part
using a hyphen - e.g. misc.invest.real-estate rather than
misc.invest.estate.real, which would imply that a real was a type
of estate!
Taxonomic
Taxonomy is the science of the classifying things - for example
species in biology, or books in a library. Group names classify
subjects into areas and hierarchies. Getting these right is not
easy, for you have to fit in with those already there, and also
allow for likely future growth.
Not definitive
News group names are inclusive rather than definitive. That is to
say, a group name defines an area in which a message may be posted
if there is no other group with a better name fit. The name does
not define exact limits to the group, eliminating subjects that do
not exactly match the definition.
Helping users
The group name is often the only clue the user has about the group
without reading a selection of articles from the group. There are
currently over 1300 Usenet news groups, and well over 10,000 groups
including all the other news hierarchies from alt to zer. It is
not possible for users to read every group to find out which are of
interest to them. Similarly, even a very popular group will only
be read by 1% of all Usenet users. So the name has to make sense to
the 99% who are not reading the group. It should be clear enough
to avoid users posting "what is this?" articles, and to ensure that
those who *would* like to know more about the subject do recognise
the group's purpose and start to read it and join in. Also, bear in
mind that Usenet is global, that users come from many different
cultures, and that for many, English is not their first language.
This leads to some strong guidelines about choosing names:
- Group similar subjects together, in the same hierarchy if
possible, so that people looking for a related subject will have a
good idea where to find it. It is often better to put a new group
with others in an approximately right "place" than to insist on
getting the name precise at the expense of putting the group in
some obscure area that many potential users will not look at.
- Create general groups before creating very specific ones.
- Dnt Abrv8 Do not abbreviate or use obscure names. Your
abbreviation may well be recognised by someone else as meaning
something entirely different, especially if English is a second
language to them.
- Use English words in group names. The articles in a group should
use whatever language is appropriate for that group, but group names
should use English as that is the one language that can be
understood by almost all Usenet users.
Helping news administrators
No site now has the disk space to carry 10,000 news groups and keep
all their articles for weeks. So news administrators have to be
selective in which groups they carry and how long they keep the
articles of each group (expiry times). Yet with so many groups,
they cannot manage each one separately. So they make use of
the hierarchic property, and control news in hierarchies. For
example, one may keep comp articles longer than rec, another may
decide not to take any comp.sys.ibm.* groups as none of their users
reads them. This is the other reason hierarchies are so important,
and why a new group should always be fitted into an existing
hierarchy if at all possible. Some new group proposers think it
does not matter if their group does not fit in to this scheme,
assuming that news administrators who don't want it can select it
out individually: this is a mistaken view. Every group that a site
gets that its users do not read, makes less disk space and so
shorter expiry times for the groups they *do* want.
What's next?
Think about these guidelines before naming your new news group.
Remember that name mistakes made in the past when Usenet was much
smaller, or now in uncontrolled parts of the net like alt, are no
reason to make more mistakes now. On the contrary, now is the time
to correct some of those past mistakes.
And if you still need advice, ask group-...@uunet.uu.net.
David Wright Draft for comment 28 November 1994
Regards,
David Wright, speaking as a member of, but not for
group-...@uunet.uu.net, a small advisory list that tale refers
people to for advice on newsgroup naming and votes.
d...@bnr.co.uk <or> d...@bnr.ca <or> uunet!stl!dww <or> D.W.Wright.EG10@bnr
Dan Hartung
>Stephen Joseph Smith <sjs...@cs.umd.edu> wrote:
>#I'd like to address a side issue for a moment. After the push to have the
>#hierarchy named "humanities.*" rather than "hum.*", can we please not have
>#a second level called "lit"? Can we please call it
>#"humanities.literature.*"?
>#
>#Thoughts?
>
>Agreed. Dnt Abvr8 :-)
>
>With so many thousands of news groups, the clearer the name of each is,
>the easier it is for people to read the name and understand it rapidly and
>know whether to skip it or read it, (or "subscribe" to it, as many of the
>new OLR type news readers call it - and with net growth they may be in the
>majority!).
>
>Full long names are much easier to read and comprehend than short
>abbreviations, especially to people whose first language is not English,
>(remember the net is global).
>
>Hence the strong recommendation against abbreviations in the news group
>names FAQ. And that applies even more in the new humanities hierarchy,
>where the mistakes of code-mad programmers (comp.dcom and worse) should
>not be repeated.
[etc.]
*sigh* Despite this advice it does seem as though there's
overwhelming support for abrvtns. We on the list (and I was
in favor of hum, not humanities, but only slightly) believed
that spelling out the hierarchy name would actually encourage
spelling out further levels.
In fact, the *opposite* seems to be true:
* people assume that the greater clarity of the hierarchy
name carries thru to any abbreviation appended
* people don't want to type as much an "anities" is 7
letters too many already
This is reflected in the comments I received during the
straw poll.
--
* Daniel A. Hartung * dhar...@mcs.com * http://www.mcs.net/~dhartung/ *
Mage: I see a great hand reaching out of the stars. The hand is yours, and
I hear the sounds of billions of people calling your name."
Londo: My followers?
Mage: Your victims.
A reminder that things we start, do not always end with us.
Colin R. Leech
> My BBS is going to mirror the most popular 100 usenet groups posted here.
> Could someone forward me this list?
Why follow the crowd? I think that some of the
alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.* newsgroups are near the top. Does that
mean you want them? Why not just pick groups of interest to you, or let
your users request specific ones? (It shouldn't be too hard to download a
complete list of names.)
--
Colin R. Leech |-> Civil Engineer by training,
ag...@freenet.carleton.ca |-> Transportation Planner by choice,
h:613-224-2301 w:613-741-6440 |-> Trombonist by hobby.
My opinions are my own, not my employer's. You may consider them shareware.
Kai Henningsen
> One could argue that "lit" is a much more standard abbreviation for
> "literature" than "hum" is for "humanities". Personally, though, "lit" is
> below my tolerance level for "how common an abbreviation has to be, and how
> bad the alternative is, for the abbreviation to be used in a newsgroup
> name".
>
> Thoughts?
How much more common can it get?
Kai
--
Internet: k...@khms.westfalen.de
Bang: major_backbone!khms.westfalen.de!kai
http://www.westfalen.de/~kai/
## CrossPoint v3.02 ##
Stephen Joseph Smith
Kai Henningsen <k...@khms.westfalen.de> wrote:
>sjs...@cs.umd.edu wrote on 24.04.95 in <3nfoe1$i...@tulgey.cs.umd.edu>:
>> abbreviation has to be, and how bad the alternative is, for the
>> abbreviation to be used in a newsgroup name".
>
Well, the straw poll is over, the Defenders of Namespace Clarity have lost
to the People Who Can't Be Bothered to Type Seven Extra Characters When
They Subscribe to the Newsgroup, so this specific case is moot. However,
with people talking about "humanities.lit.eng.*" (for discussion of
engineering literature, as someone else has pointed out) and
"humanities.lit.it.*" (for discussion of the Stephen King novel, I
presume), it might be a good idea to discuss abbreviations again.
Note that I also said "how bad the alternative is". The alternative to
"humanities.lit" is "humanities.literature", which is clear.
For a contrast, try "comp.protocols.ibm". This seems better than
"comp.protocols.intl-bus-machs".
Are all existing newsgroups well-named? *NO*. My least favorite is
comp.dsp, which at the very least should be comp.signal-process.
No, I don't think "humanities.lit.*" is awful, and I will grudgingly vote
for humanities.lit.english.shakespeare (or something similar in the
humanities.lit.* hierarchy) rather than vote against it based on the name
alone (Peter da Silva is right; in an ideal world, we could vote for a
newsgroup but against its name.) No, I don't think many people are going
to stumble into humanities.lit.misc someday, and ask "So, what does
everybody think about litERAL humanities?"
But I *do* think that "humanities.lit.eng.misc", as named, will have to
fight off engineering technical writers, and "humanities.lit.it.misc", as
named, will have occasional Stephen King threads. The proponents of
newsgroups in these hierarchies will be much better served to name them
*.english.* and *.italian.*...
My feelings on humanities.literature.* is that while the benefit of
"literature" as opposed to "lit" may be small, the cost of "literature" as
opposed to "lit" is even smaller, so the Right Thing is "literature". It's
apparently too late, though, unless there's a groundswell of opposition in
news.groups, or unless the proponents of humanities.lit.* see the light
(proponents, please reconsider...)
- Stephen
Markus Freericks
[..]
> But I *do* think that "humanities.lit.eng.misc", as named, will have to
> fight off engineering technical writers, and "humanities.lit.it.misc", as
> named, will have occasional Stephen King threads. The proponents of
> newsgroups in these hierarchies will be much better served to name them
> *.english.* and *.italian.*...
True, "eng" and "it" are much too ambiguous to be allowed as abbreviations.
(But maybe the question of whether to use "author" or "authors" can be
avoided by naming it humanities.lit.auth.shakespeare ? *ducks away* ;-)
> My feelings on humanities.literature.* is that while the benefit of
> "literature" as opposed to "lit" may be small, the cost of "literature" as
> opposed to "lit" is even smaller, so the Right Thing is "literature". It's
well, 7 characters is about 10% of a line, which is quite an important
resource for many a newsreading system - many people still use hardware
and/or software restricted to 80-character lines; exceedingly long
newsgroup names can pose problems on such systems. This is especially bad
if the 7 chars are "high up" in a hierarchy with many sub-groups, as the
burden is shared by all subgroups.
> apparently too late, though, unless there's a groundswell of opposition in
> news.groups, or unless the proponents of humanities.lit.* see the light
> (proponents, please reconsider...)
never! ;-)
IMHO, the abbreviation problem cannot be solved by adopting some generic
policy, but only by separately considering each group/hierarchy name
proposal on its own.
-- Markus
Duncan Murdoch
[someone else said:]
>> My feelings on humanities.literature.* is that while the benefit of
>> "literature" as opposed to "lit" may be small, the cost of "literature" as
>> opposed to "lit" is even smaller, so the Right Thing is "literature". It's
>well, 7 characters is about 10% of a line, which is quite an important
>resource for many a newsreading system - many people still use hardware
>and/or software restricted to 80-character lines; exceedingly long
>newsgroup names can pose problems on such systems. This is especially bad
>if the 7 chars are "high up" in a hierarchy with many sub-groups, as the
>burden is shared by all subgroups.
The longest newsgroup names in the (like the one I proposed,
comp.soft-sys.app-builder.delphi.components) still tend to be under 50
characters in length. Since the number of possible names grows exponentially
with name length, I don't think we'll get many 80 character names soon. If
newsreaders are designed to use part of the line for something else, these may
end up looking ugly (e.g. the current status listing that David Lawrence posts
is starting to suffer; he'll have to switch to a single column soon).
However, these are fairly easy problems to solve by the authors of the
newsreaders. There are already very long names that they need to be able to
handle. Name length is an aesthetic consideration, not a practical one, and
it should rank at a lower priority than considerations like recognizability.
Duncan Murdoch
Marty Hyatt
confusion between english and engineering.
.auth. only saves 3 letters from authors and I think the whole
word is also preferable in this case. Even though .authors.
might also be confused with "authorship" it is less ambiguous
because .authors. is a whole word.
Marty Hyatt <hy...@duq3.cc.duq.edu> <hy...@telerama.lm.com>
(proponent of humanities.lit.?.shakespeare)
David Seal
>True, "eng" and "it" are much too ambiguous to be allowed as abbreviations.
>(But maybe the question of whether to use "author" or "authors" can be
>avoided by naming it humanities.lit.auth.shakespeare ? *ducks away* ;-)
No, that's obviously a group to discuss the authentic literary works
of Shakespeare, as opposed to those which were really written by
Francis Bacon... *ducks the other way* :-)
David Seal
ds...@armltd.co.uk
Scot Art
>But I *do* think that "humanities.lit.eng.misc", as named, will have to
>fight off engineering technical writers, and "humanities.lit.it.misc", as
>news.groups, or unless the proponents of humanities.lit.* see the light
>(proponents, please reconsider...)
Well personally, I don't think that humanities.lit.eng is in much danger
of being mistaken for engineering technical writing - that's *engineering*
or *human-factors* not 'humanities'. I'm a technical writer by profession
(and I am in this position because of engineering qualifications) and a
humanities student in my remaining spare time, I certainly don;t know any
other tech.writers who think that their profession is 'humanities' based.
I can't see the problem with 'lit' it is an fairly widely accepted
abbreviation! Dept of Eng Lit. Lit Theory, Lit Criticism, hell, its not
just a written abbreviation its a *commonly used word*.
I do agree that languages, etc, should be fully spelt, e.g.
humanities.lit.english & .italian, etc.
ciao, scot.
--
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\
\ System-X Communications - http://sysx.apana.org.au/ /
/ computer mediated communications for computer mediated artists \
\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/
Peter L. Montgomery
>sjs...@cs.umd.edu (Stephen Joseph Smith) writes:
>>But I *do* think that "humanities.lit.eng.misc", as named, will have to
>>fight off engineering technical writers, and "humanities.lit.it.misc", as
>>news.groups, or unless the proponents of humanities.lit.* see the light
>>(proponents, please reconsider...)
>I can't see the problem with 'lit' it is an fairly widely accepted
>abbreviation! Dept of Eng Lit. Lit Theory, Lit Criticism, hell, its not
>just a written abbreviation its a *commonly used word*.
Abbreviations are ambiguous. For example, the ba.* hierarchy
is for the San Francisco Bay Area and Northern California.
When I complained to one poster who advertised a non-California
job in ba.jobs.offered, he responded that he thought BA
stood for ``Business Administration''. I can't argue with his reasoning.
It might also mean ``Baltimore'' or ``Buenos Aries'' or ``Bachelor of Arts''.
As for LIT, perhaps it means ``Language Interpreters and
Translators''.
--
Peter L. Montgomery pmon...@cwi.nl San Rafael, California
Mathematically gifted, unemployed, U.S. citizen. Interested in computer
architecture, program optimization, computer arithmetic, cryptography,
compilers, computational mathematics. 17 years industrial experience.
Todd Mullins
: d...@bnr.co.uk (David Wright) wrote:
: >Stephen Joseph Smith <sjs...@cs.umd.edu> wrote:
: >#I'd like to address a side issue for a moment. After the push to have the
: >#hierarchy named "humanities.*" rather than "hum.*", can we please not have
: >#a second level called "lit"? Can we please call it
: >#"humanities.literature.*"?
: >Agreed. Dnt Abvr8 :-)
:
: * people assume that the greater clarity of the hierarchy
: name carries thru to any abbreviation appended
: * people don't want to type as much an "anities" is 7
: letters too many already
Oh, Christ. Like typing an extra seven characters is going to seriously
impinge upon people's free time (if I'd typed "7" instead, I could have
saved a whole 0.9 seconds!!).
May I point out:
- Full words are more explicitly descriptive. Period.
- With modern (especially GUI - oops, I mean Graphical User Interface -
based) newsreaders, users seldom need to actually type newsgroup
names.
- Unless you still hunt-and-peck, typing actual words is often faster
than typing a semi-random collection of letters.
--
Todd Mullins
to...@nutria.nrlssc.navy.mil On the lovely Mississippi (USA) Coast
"A life lived in fear is a life half lived."
Michael Shields
Duncan Murdoch <dmur...@mast.queensu.ca> wrote:
> The longest newsgroup names in the (like the one I proposed,
> comp.soft-sys.app-builder.delphi.components) still tend to be under 50
> characters in length. Since the number of possible names grows exponentially
> with name length, I don't think we'll get many 80 character names soon.
Well, looking at current Usenet groups, the
longest are under misc.forsale.computers -- namely,
misc.forsale.computers.mac-specific.cards.video and
misc.forsale.computers.pc-specific.motherboards, at 47 characters.
The longest alt group carried at uunet is
alt.i-like-toejam.lets-share-a-slice.but-hold-the-cow-eyes-please,
weighing in at 65 characters. It looks like the longest group with
a reasonable name is alt.binaries.pictures.erotica.amateur.female,
44 characters.
I'd say that we won't see 80-character names any time soon, but newsreader
authors should think ahead.
Does anyone have historical newsgroups or active files? It might be
interesting to plot name length vs. time, going back to the original
net.recipes and such.
--
Shields.
Kai Henningsen
> As for LIT, perhaps it means ``Language Interpreters and
> Translators''.
And maybe "news" means "neat eel waving system"?
Kai Henningsen
> In article <3o5atg$2...@news.cs.tu-berlin.de> m...@cs.tu-berlin.de (Markus
> Freericks) writes:
> >well, 7 characters is about 10% of a line, which is quite an important
> >resource for many a newsreading system - many people still use hardware
> >and/or software restricted to 80-character lines; exceedingly long
> >newsgroup names can pose problems on such systems. This is especially bad
> >if the 7 chars are "high up" in a hierarchy with many sub-groups, as the
> >burden is shared by all subgroups.
>
> The longest newsgroup names in the (like the one I proposed,
> comp.soft-sys.app-builder.delphi.components) still tend to be under 50
> characters in length. Since the number of possible names grows
> exponentially with name length, I don't think we'll get many 80 character
> names soon. If newsreaders are designed to use part of the line for
> something else, these may end up looking ugly (e.g. the current status
> listing that David Lawrence posts is starting to suffer; he'll have to
> switch to a single column soon).
Well, anything that turns the main newsgroup listing of a reader into
something needing more than one line is, from a user interface point of
view, a very bad thing.
This is how the one on my reader looks currently:
> comp.lang.fortran Discussion about FORTRAN.
> comp.lang.functional Discussion about functional la
> comp.lang.idl IDL (Interface Description Lan
> comp.lang.idl-pvwave IDL and PV-Wave language discu
> comp.lang.lisp Discussion about LISP.
> comp.lang.lisp.franz The Franz Lisp programming lan
> comp.lang.lisp.mcl Discussing Apple's Macintosh C
> comp.lang.logo The Logo teaching and learning
> comp.lang.misc Different computer languages n
> comp.lang.ml ML languages including Standar
> comp.lang.modula2 Discussion about Modula-2.
> comp.lang.modula3 Discussion about the Modula-3
> comp.lang.mumps The M (MUMPS) language & techn
> comp.lang.oberon The Oberon language and system
> comp.lang.objective-c The Objective-C language and e
> comp.lang.pascal Discussion about Pascal.
> comp.lang.perl Discussion of Larry Wall's Per
> comp.lang.pop Pop11 and the Plug user group.
> comp.lang.postscript The PostScript Page Descriptio
> comp.lang.prograph Prograph, a visual object-orie
> comp.lang.prolog Discussion about PROLOG.
> comp.lang.python The Python computer language.
> comp.lang.rexx The REXX command language.
> comp.lang.sather The object-oriented computer l
> comp.lang.scheme The Scheme Programming languag
Isn't that rather more useful than only listing the group name? And you
already see the place constraints.
> However, these are fairly easy problems to solve by the authors of the
> newsreaders. There are already very long names that they need to be able to
> handle. Name length is an aesthetic consideration, not a practical one, and
> it should rank at a lower priority than considerations like recognizability.
Well, I think you are dead wrong on this. While software certainly should
not choke on long names, it is nearly impossible to use very long names in
an user-friendly way.
Per Abrahamsen
>>>>> "KH" == Kai Henningsen <k...@khms.westfalen.de> writes:
KH> pmon...@cwi.nl wrote on 07.05.95 in <D86y...@cwi.nl>:
>> As for LIT, perhaps it means ``Language Interpreters and
>> Translators''.
KH> And maybe "news" means "neat eel waving system"?
No, NeWS is the Network extensible Window System (see comp.windows.news).
One group that has been burned by choosing too short a name.
What is `lit' really supposed to stand for? The webster program
suggest it is the "past of light". Maybe it has a different meaning
for native English speakers?
Peter da Silva
Per Abrahamsen <abr...@iesd.auc.dk> wrote:
>What is `lit' really supposed to stand for? The webster program
>suggest it is the "past of light". Maybe it has a different meaning
>for native English speakers?
There is an active mailing list discussing extrasolar expeditions named
after the hypothetical lunar institute of technology, or "lit".
Matthew P Wiener
>Well, I think you are dead wrong on this. While software certainly should
>not choke on long names, it is nearly impossible to use very long names in
>an user-friendly way.
My newsreader (Gnews) uses name expansion and user-defined abbreviations.
Nothing user unfriendly I've noticed.
--
-Matthew P Wiener (wee...@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)