Special Postings and Digest Title
gheni...@xerox.com.uucp
be included in AIList... I realize this would create more work for
Moderator Ken Laws, but what if these special postings always went out
grouped in SEPARATE ISSUES and the "Subject:" line were made MORE
DESCRIPTIVE so readers could skip selectively?
Thus instead of getting
AIList Digest V5 #92
we could get messages titled:
AIList V5 #92 - Source
AIList V5 #92 - Bibliography
AIList V5 #92 - General
or something along those lines (you get the idea)
I would like to see source postings back in AIList, maybe the above
system can satisfy those who would rather skip them. Any comments?
Pablo Ghenis
Xerox Artificial Intelligence Systems
Educational Services
[I could add such a heading, but one result would be longer
delays for some material until enough arrived for a full
digest. Anyway, I'm not sure I see the savings. My mailer,
which is probably the used throughout the Arpanet, doesn't
display enough of the title for the keywords to be visible.
If I read enough of the message to get the full title, I only
have to scroll a few more lines to get the Topics listing.
A better solution is to have independent mailing lists for
different types of material. Even the Stanford bboard is
partitioned now, so why not AIList? The only difficulty
is that I don't want to maintain multiple mailing lists.
It wouldn't be so bad if I had a good database system for
converting request messages into additions and deletions,
but I have to do it by hand and I'm not eager to double or
triple the time this takes.
I've heard of a database server for code distributions that
might be open to the Arpanet; I will investigate. I am
beginning to think, though, that FTP and mail requests are
not such a bad thing. Gordon Novak tells me he has had over
thirty requests for his code, in addition to any FTPs (which
he wouldn't know about). Handling thirty requests is a bit
of a hassle, but also a bit of a thrill. It generates
professional contacts and keeps people in touch. Why, I
can imagine someone disallowing FTP altogether just to keep
track of who is getting the code. To go even further, a
separate interest list could be established. And if a code
author didn't want the hassle at all, s/he could use AIList to
find someone else willing to handle the distribution in
return for access to the code. Isn't this better than having
an impersonal central server stuffed with obsolete, unmaintained
code? Or a broadcast system like AIList? The only real
disadvantage is that code may become inaccesible if the author
leaves his current site, but copies should be available from
somewhere (perhaps via AIList query). -- KIL]