Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ames.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!think!harvard!seismo!lll-crg!well!ptsfa!dual!ames!jaw From: jaw@ames.UUCP (James A. Woods) Newsgroups: net.news.group Subject: Re: Net.software.projects group idea--Not a good idea Message-ID: <1108@ames.UUCP> Date: Fri, 23-Aug-85 19:50:12 EDT Article-I.D.: ames.1108 Posted: Fri Aug 23 19:50:12 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 25-Aug-85 13:34:18 EDT References: <346@eneevax.UUCP> <749@vortex.UUCP> Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center, Mtn. View, CA Lines: 27 # "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent" -- eleanor roosevelt again, lauren, in his very admirable (but nevertheless quixotic) role as "the voice of sanity" on usenet, has perceived the essence of the matter. net.projects is simply too general, and would inevitably produce the flotsam now seen even in the likes of (the presumably staid) net.database. mod.projects is more like it, but even here, mailing lists arising from individual technical groups would do the job fine. for example, last year, folks talked about news compression a bit in net.news. someone put the question to net.news about whether anyone was working on same. the ieee computer article came out, code was posted to net.sources, and an international project to improve the utility was carried out -- first, by a small cadre of correspondents connected via a complete graph, and then, through the traditional moderated "reflector" style mailing list. if the "compress" discussions were to be net-wide, then thousands would be bored by implementation details. (to polish an apple here, the intrepid lempel-ziv freaks will always be in the unique position of having a "negative" byte-count associated with their net verbiage.) i myself am not sure whether the freeway hypothesis holds (more groups cause more congestion), or whether traffic is a linear (or asymptotic) function of uucp logins independent of group cardinality. i'm only protesting about net.projects here, not new group formation. -- james a. woods (ames!jaw)