Rec.radio.reorg won't work, anyway.
e...@ham.almanac.bc.ca
Many of the proponents for the reorganization of the rec.radio
newsgroups have complained about the volume of news postings on
r.r.a.m. By my count, r.r.a.m. is usually less than 100 articles
per day. An active group, certainly, but not overwhelming, to be
sure.
(And we could certainly reduce it even more if certain people
would stop @#$%^& CROSSPOSTING their bulletins! :-)
Given our experience with rec.radio.policy, which by any criteria
has been a dismal failure at moving policy discussions off of
r.r.a.m., however, why are those of you proposing the split
confident that more newsgroups will work?
All that will occur is that EVERYBODY will cross-post to a
r.r.a.m. as well as the specific group. All that you've done is
to duplicate the original postings in the new groups. If you
don't believe me, fine. Go and look at r.r.policy and see how
many articles were ONLY posted to policy. Find any?
While I'm in favour of reducing the traffic volume, I'm not in
favour of adding, wholus bolus, a great whack of new newsgroups
that will only duplicate traffic even further.
As far as I'm concerned, the new proposal is not wanted, not
needed, and not likely to result in any improvement.
Robert Smits There is *no* idiotproof filter.
VE7EMD Idiots are proof against anything!
Ladysmith B.C. - Richard Chycoski, VE7CVS
e-mail: e...@ham.almanac.bc.ca
Bob Witte
[ stuff deleted ]
>
> don't believe me, fine. Go and look at r.r.policy and see how
> many articles were ONLY posted to policy. Find any?
>
e...@ham.almanac.bc.ca
Big deal. How many? What percentage do they form of the overall postings?
I'll bet you it's less than 20%.
Jay Maynard
>> > don't believe me, fine. Go and look at r.r.policy and see how
>> > many articles were ONLY posted to policy. Find any?
>I'll bet you it's less than 20%.
You lose.
Of the 74 articles currently available on the news system at the University
of Denver, where I'm reading news, 10 were crossposted, leaving 64 as being
posted only to rec.radio.amateur.policy.
--
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmay...@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu | adequately be explained by stupidity.
"I can understand if it just won't work but I think locking up my system
to tell me this is a little excessive." -- Steve Luzynski
Ian Kluft
>Given our experience with rec.radio.policy, which by any criteria
>has been a dismal failure at moving policy discussions off of
>r.r.a.m., however, why are those of you proposing the split
>confident that more newsgroups will work?
We've already been through this point several times. Yes,
rec.radio.amateur.policy has not accomplished its goal because it was intended
to be a dumping ground for an unwanted topic. That is why ALL of the groups
proposed in the RFD have taken their example from rec.radio.amateur.packet,
which is a definite success story. It was based on a topic people are
interested in. So all the proposed newsgroups are too.
>All that will occur is that EVERYBODY will cross-post to a
>r.r.a.m. as well as the specific group.
Cross-posting is too much work for most users. They won't do it in the
numbers you fear. Some will, but it will most likely be insignificant
compared to the regular traffic in the groups.
73 de KD6EUI
--
Ian Kluft KD6EUI PP-ASEL Amdahl Corporation, Open Systems Development
ikl...@uts.amdahl.com Santa Clara, CA
[disclaimer: any opinions expressed are mine only... not those of my employer]
e...@ham.almanac.bc.ca
> In article <07gk2B...@ham.almanac.bc.ca> e...@ham.almanac.bc.ca writes:
> >> > don't believe me, fine. Go and look at r.r.policy and see how
> >> > many articles were ONLY posted to policy. Find any?
> >Big deal. How many? What percentage do they form of the overall postings?
> >I'll bet you it's less than 20%.
>
> You lose.
>
> Of the 74 articles currently available on the news system at the University
> of Denver, where I'm reading news, 10 were crossposted, leaving 64 as being
> posted only to rec.radio.amateur.policy.
> --
You're right. I was wrong. When I checked my own system I found only 1 of
27 articles was cross-posted. I was certain, too, that a lot of the
articles I read in policy I had already read in misc. So certain, in fact
that I hadn't even counted them lately. I guess the demise of the
"open/closed repeater" flame wars had me fooled.
Since you've demonstrated (quite successfully) that I'm wrong, I withdraw
my opposition to the split. If it CAN be made to work, I'm for it.
Dave Horsfall
e...@ham.almanac.bc.ca writes:
| Big deal. How many? What percentage do they form of the overall postings?
| I'll bet you it's less than 20%.
How much did you say you'd bet?
On my site:
rec.radio.amateur.policy 105
ditto, plus r.r.a.misc 4
regular monster x-post 1
---
110
Now, what were you saying again?
--
Dave Horsfall (VK2KFU) VK2KFU @ VK2RWI.NSW.AUS.OC PGP 2.2
da...@esi.COM.AU ...munnari!esi.COM.AU!dave available
Jon Bloom
>e...@ham.almanac.bc.ca writes:
>>Given our experience with rec.radio.policy, which by any criteria
>>has been a dismal failure at moving policy discussions off of
>>r.r.a.m., however, why are those of you proposing the split
>>confident that more newsgroups will work?
>
>We've already been through this point several times. Yes,
>rec.radio.amateur.policy has not accomplished its goal because it was intended
>to be a dumping ground for an unwanted topic.
I think this somewhat overstates the case. From the perspective of
improving the signal-to-noise ratio of r.r.a.misc, yes, r.r.a.policy
has been a failure. But applying the same test to r.r.a.policy that
is being applied to the proposed groups gives a somewhat better result.
There are at present several ongoing policy discussions in r.r.a.policy.
(76 articles in the past week, by my count). Yes, there's some flamage,
too, but I wouldn't characterize the level of flamage as being
damagingly high. The level of traffic--including the level of
flamage--varies with time, of course, but over all r.r.a.policy seems
to be picking up steam and becoming more of a useful group. It still
isn't removing all--or nearly all--of the "policy" discussion from
r.r.a.misc, which is why I don't consider it an unqualified success,
but I think it is not an overall failure. In light of the fact that
the name r.r.a.policy isn't particularly enlightening (I know: so think
of a better one, fella!), this to me bodes well for the proposed split.
>>All that will occur is that EVERYBODY will cross-post to a
>>r.r.a.m. as well as the specific group.
>
>Cross-posting is too much work for most users. They won't do it in the
>numbers you fear. Some will, but it will most likely be insignificant
>compared to the regular traffic in the groups.
I agree. Why should people xpost between all of the r.r.a.* groups
any more than they already xpost between the r.r.a.* and other
groups? Some level of unreasonable crossposting will always be with
us. That is not, in itself, a reason to deny ourselves the benefits
of a well-chosen heirarchy of news groups.
-------
Jon Bloom, KE3Z | jbl...@arrl.org
American Radio Relay League | Justice is being allowed to do whatever
225 Main St. | I like. Injustice is whatever prevents
Newington, CT 06111 | my doing so. -- Samuel Johnson
Mark G. Salyzyn
>bo...@col.hp.com (Bob Witte) writes:
>>e...@ham.almanac.bc.ca writes:
>>>don't believe me, fine. Go and look at r.r.policy and see how
>>>many articles were ONLY posted to policy. Find any?
>>Yes.
>Big deal. How many? What percentage do they form of the overall postings?
>I'll bet you it's less than 20%.
What is the point, many of us (on both sides of the camp) agreed that
r.r.a.policy was a poor attempt to create a dumping ground for
unwanted debates. We all learned our lesson that creating dumping
grounds will not work. Please look at the success of r.r.a.packet as
that group is more in line with the principals of the splits that are
recommended.
What emd is *realy* complaining about here is the fact he runs a
DOS BBS package that has serious problems with cross-postings, not with
r.r.a.policy specifically. He has fears that cross-posting will
increase (and this increase his problems). What realy needs to happen
here is for some pressure to be placed on the authors of WAFFLE and
the like to add in some of the capabilities of the popular news readers,
since Waffle is typically used as an off line news reader anyways ...
If I had a Waffle site downstream of me, and if it were a leaf site, I'd
have no problems providing the filtering services, but this can be done
on your site too Robert (replace rnews with a simple BASIC program that
filters the articles, `adjusting' the Newsgroups filed if necessary, then
calling the *real* rnews). The process is a simple text filter and should
be capable of providing your own Universe. If you are not capable of doing
this on your own, send me email and I will investigate and help you with
this problem (I have made this offer twice in previous postings, and in one
private email to you Robert).
Ciao -- Mark
e...@ham.almanac.bc.ca
>
> What emd is *realy* complaining about here is the fact he runs a
> DOS BBS package that has serious problems with cross-postings, not with
> r.r.a.policy specifically. He has fears that cross-posting will
> increase (and this increase his problems). What realy needs to happen
> here is for some pressure to be placed on the authors of WAFFLE and
> the like to add in some of the capabilities of the popular news readers,
> since Waffle is typically used as an off line news reader anyways ...
>
Mark, you're obviously NOT reading the news. I acknowledged a week ago
that I was wrong about the number of articles actually cross-posted to
r.r.a.policy, after Jay pointed it out. I SUPPORT the split. I am already
convinced that the split willl not cause an appreciable increase in
cross-posting. (With the probable exception of stuff cross posted to
r.r.info, :-( )
> If I had a Waffle site downstream of me, and if it were a leaf site, I'd
> have no problems providing the filtering services, but this can be done
> on your site too Robert (replace rnews with a simple BASIC program that
> filters the articles, `adjusting' the Newsgroups filed if necessary, then
> calling the *real* rnews). The process is a simple text filter and should
> be capable of providing your own Universe. If you are not capable of doing
> this on your own, send me email and I will investigate and help you with
> this problem (I have made this offer twice in previous postings, and in one
> private email to you Robert).
>
> Ciao -- Mark
Duplicate articles are not "a serious problem". They are a darn nuisance
that I put up with at the expense of wasted space on my hard drive.
Someone else in this discussion has already pointed out that there is a
program to kill duplicate articles for Waffle DOS boxes, but that only
works if you are the sole reader of news on your machine. And second,
that fails to deal at all with the readers of mailing lists.
I've already said that I support the split, and basically prefer Option
1, with the addition of r.r.a.antennas.
The attitude of some in this discussion, however, that those not running
the latest software, or UNIX, or who are on mailing lists do not deserve
to have their interests considered whatever, is not generating support
for your position.