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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?