Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84 chuqui version 1.7 9/23/84; site nsc.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!decwrl!sun!idi!nsc!chuqui
From: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Zonker T. Chuqui)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: "mod.fred + net.fred"
Message-ID: <1816@nsc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-Nov-84 17:12:27 EST
Article-I.D.: nsc.1816
Posted: Sat Nov  3 17:12:27 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Nov-84 05:14:58 EST
References: <370@ucsfcgl.UUCP> <> <1786@nsc.UUCP> <>
Reply-To: chuqui@nsc.UUCP (Zonker T. Chuqui)
Organization: The Warlocks Cave, Western Annex
Lines: 62
Summary: 

>>WEll, Ken, as soon as you have this neat feature implemented we'll be MORE
>>than happy to use it.
>
>Ah, yes.  Silly me.  I suggested a feature without having yet
>implemented it.  I apologize.  Next time I like an idea, FIRST I will
>implement it, THEN I will suggest it.  This makes so much sense, I'm
>surprised I didn't see it before.
>
Ok, the sarcasm was a bit on the heavy side, but there is a valid point in
there. Too many people out there seem to think that Usenet occurs by magic,
and that good suggestions get implemented by magic somewhere. Well,
unfortunately, it isn't that way-- even plaid warlocks have limitations on
what they can do with their time. I DO believe that your idea has merit and
I'd like to see more about it-- reality says that waiting to get it
implemented, debugged, and installed on enough sites to make it worth using
is a serious mistake. We need to not only plan for the future, but work
with what we have now. What we have now is 2.10.2 and moderated groups, and
there are problems with them (a number of sites don't seem to be forwarding
mod.all right now-- I'm going to attempt to track them down in the next
couple of weeks). 

There are a group of people, mostly insane I'd guess, who put in a lot of
their spare time and effort to try and keep Usenet running smoothly and
make it better. People like Mark Horton, like Lauren, and Rick, and Spaf
and myself. We all happen to be human, which means we need to eat and sleep
and occasionally we screw up, but the common denominator is that we care
about the net and are willing to do what we think should be done for the
sake of the net. I don't know what the rest of them see, but I know that I
spend a lot of my time reading articles and mail from people screaming and
complaining about all of the problems that the net has (it is far from
perfect)-- relatively rarely is this criticism constructive, rarer still is
there any attempt at putting together a solution. A lot of what I see is 
'This is bogus, someone needs to fix it so I can read net.jokes again.'A
Much of the time, that someone is Mark, or Rick, or Lauren, or Spaf, or,
well you get the idea. 

So, if my sarcasm weighs a little heavy, I'm sorry. I spend a lot of time
seeing people screaming about problems, but few of them offering
solutions-- they'd rather read net.flame. I'm not looking for fan mail--
heaven forbid! I have enough trouble answering all the hate mail I get,
besides I learn a lot more from the hate mail about what IS wrong and what
can be fixed. What I'd like to see is a little more understanding from the
real world out there about how much work DOES go into usenet, and why it
we don't always get the latest whizbangs into the software a week after
people decide it's a great idea-- sometimes you have to work with what you
have, problems and all, and sometimes you simply can't wait for the
whizbang to be implemented.

>Seriously, do you really think I should just dive in and implement a
>feature without having other people comment?
No, but I think it SHOULD be followed up-- the idea has definite merits.
But we should realize that usenet is a volunteer effort, and any effort
takes time. I don't think we really want to wait around for things like
these to be implemented-- we need to make the best use of what we already
have.

chuq
-- 
From the Department of Bistromatics:                   Chuq Von Rospach
{cbosgd,decwrl,fortune,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!chuqui  nsc!chuqui@decwrl.ARPA

  I'd know those eyes from a million years away....