Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site hou3c.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!hou3c!REM@Mit-Mc.ARPA From: REM@Mit-Mc.ARPA (Robert Elton Maas) Newsgroups: net.mail.msggroup Subject: redistribution lists --> conferences&magazines&links etc. Message-ID: <606@hou3c.UUCP> Date: Sat, 2-Jun-84 08:52:00 EDT Article-I.D.: hou3c.606 Posted: Sat Jun 2 08:52:00 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 5-Jun-84 19:31:52 EDT Sender: ka@hou3c.UUCP (Kenneth Almquist) Lines: 50 To: Jacob_Palme_QZ%QZCOM.MAILNET@Mit-Multics.ARPA Cc: MSGGROUP@Brl-Aos.ARPA It seems to me that more useful than conferences would be followup-links and magazines and keyword-access. Magazines are very close to conferences in logic design: Submitters propose articles, and the editor selects which ones will be included in each issue. What do you think of the similarity and differences? Keyword access gives an alternate way to introduce new topics/discussions from conference/magazine. Method 1 is for a customer to have a list of keywords heesh is interested in, and automatically receive in his keyword mailbox all articles with those keywords that are marked as "new-subject". Presumably all "old-subject" messages would either be received or not according to whether their predecessors were received or not (except when the customer grows tired of a topic and asks to stop receiving follow-ups from some point). Method 2 is for a customer to receive a summary of keywords in all "new-topic" messages, and then to manually pick which to read and which not. After reading such "new-topic" messages, heesh could decide whether to subscribe to the follow-up stream or not. Follow-up links are the preferred way I'd like to control what I receive and what I don't. I'd like to mark particular messages I see as interesting, so I'll receive any later message that lists it as a direct prerequisite. This would include additional information, errata, rebuttal, discussion/debate, and related topics that were sparked by the initial subject. Follow-up links are DAG (directed acyclic graph), the subject flow forks at each message, and occasionally somebody happens to write a summary message that joins together several different lines of thought that have something in common. But mostly follow-up links are tree-like, each message having one or zero prerequisite but an arbitrary number of follow-ups. Divergent branches in the tree may follow related subjects, or the topic may drift away from the original in several different directions. In a magazine or mailing list or conference it's nigh impossible to handle this divergence. Usually in a mailing list the readership must be burdened by all these divergent topics. Witness how HUMAN-NETS started with finding a public replacement for Arpanet but diverged into so many topics that at times it seems to be net.general in effect. But with follow-up links, any reader could select which branches to continue and which to prune, without adversely affecting anybody else who may have different choices. If the readership to any particular branch becomes very tiny, those who contribute could be warned; or better, whenever a messages is distributed the initial readership number could be included in the header, so persons thinking of replying would know whether to invest lots of time in a carefully-worded reply to hundreds or thousands, or slip off a quick reply to a half dozen, or not even bother if the readership has slipped to two (the author and the replyer). Has anybody provided a followup-link system for use on Arpanet?