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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!alice!jj
From: jj@alice.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.news,net.followup
Subject: Re: net overload-- comments and suggestions
Message-ID: <3438@alice.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Mar-85 10:08:44 EST
Article-I.D.: alice.3438
Posted: Tue Mar  5 10:08:44 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Mar-85 03:14:32 EST
References: <2404@nsc.UUCP> <3429@alice.UUCP>, <5160@tekecs.UUCP>
Organization: New Jersey State Farm for the Terminally Bewildered
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Xref: watmath net.news:3228 net.followup:4596


Jeff Winslow suggests that the reason for my perception of the
net's SNR going to 0 might be based on my presumed interest
in various subjects, an effective ad-hominem attack if I ever
saw one...   I do suppose that I should
elucidate on what I consider a "low SNR". 

I personally see a clear difference between articles that exhibit
1) Clearly thought out, nicely explained, and factually based arguments,
and
2) Emotional rhetoric, manipulitive rhetoric, deliberate noise
injection, etc,
REGARDLESS of what point is espoused.   When I see the articles of
type 2) becoming prevalent, and THEN becoming almost universal,
I give the net a low SNR rating (sort of like TV news).  When I see
clearly thought out arguments, I increment the SNR up a bit.  If
such articles are common (I remember one short spell of several months
several years ago, when net.flame was the only place home to 
polite discussion, mostly because it was poorly read) I give the net a high SNR.

Certainly it's a perceived rating, not any absolute rating, but
I suggest to Mr. Winslow, etc, that a LOT of people are making the
same observation of late, so it's a COMMON PERCEPTION.  Given that
we are talking  about a perceptually based measure, and the measure
is generally agreed as  failing, a problem (by defination) exists.

Mr. Winslow also later suggests that I may perceive that the net
is disputation beyond reason because I notice only disputatious
articles.  Mr. Winslow should consider that I toss almost all
articles that I even suspect to be of a disputatious nature immediately 
without reading even the first page (which is 66 lines for this terminal...),
and that I still find the "second order" dispute to be extreme and
unwarranted.

I respectively submit that contending a problem does not exist on the
current net is analogous to digging a hole in the sand below
high tide and burying one's head.
-- 
TEDDY BEARS SURVIVE EVEN IN TODAY'S BULL MARKET.  HUG YOURS, IT NEEDS YOU!

"...other side, the other man's grass is always greener, some are ..."
(allegra,harpo,ulysses)!alice!jj