Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!ptsfa!ames!sdcsvax!ucbvax!hplabs!hplabsc!taylor From: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP Newsgroups: news.admin Subject: Re: keyword-based news Message-ID: <2185@hplabsc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 7-Jul-87 15:02:26 EDT Article-I.D.: hplabsc.2185 Posted: Tue Jul 7 15:02:26 1987 Date-Received: Fri, 10-Jul-87 02:15:26 EDT References: <266@brandx.rutgers.edu> <8262@utzoo.UUCP> Sender: taylor@hplabsc.UUCP Organization: Hewlett-Packard Labs, Palo Alto, CA Lines: 49 Summary: keyword based news is interesting and don't forget user evolution. As a side note, I hacked up a newsreader that is based purely on keywords to see what it would be like. It took all the words in the Subject: Summary: and Keywords: lines, 'uniq'ed them and removed 'noise' words (e.g. the, and, a,, etc) and then logged 'em in a file as they arrived on the machine. Then the intrepid user would say "I want to read news about x, y, and z" and be shown the news *independent of what groups they were posted in*. I used it for a few days and found that it worked QUITE well and that the biggest problem I could see was that it would become very difficult to figure out what group(s) to post a completely new article to since users of this knews system would unlearn the distinction between newsgroups. This isn't good because the program and users would have to live in harmony with the rest of the net... A fun experiment showing that my theories that the concept of grouping articles by a small number of newsgroups is indeed as archaic as it seems and that I found articles and discussions in groups that I had never even read because they were indeed keyworded (see above) correctly. And as to the stuff that isn't keyworded correctly, well, if you think about it, as more and more people were to use a system of this nature the articles would become better and better keyworded since if you are going to go to the trouble of WRITING an article, you certainly want to make sure that the maximal number of people READ it, right? (this can be helped by some decent frontend software too - stuff that allows the user to edit the subject line, prompts for a "summary line", and perhaps does a crude first pass automatic keyword list). The key is that it is a lot easier for people to modify something than create it, typically. *sigh* I can imagine the hostile remarks this posting is going to generate. We've had, as people have pointed out, this discussion before. A great number of schemes have been proposed to the net, including this keywording, Webbers' multiple moderators, Fairs' accolades, and such, and somehow we keep ending up with these artificial newsgroup boundaries, articles that are more likely to be cross-posted than not, and discussion threads that are doomed to follow the 'base note' regardless of if we are still on topic or not...it's always the lowest common denominator. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned in all this?? Anyway, for what it's worth...I shall attempt to find a few free evenings and get my knews reader up to a sufficient state to allow me to post it to net.sources (errr, to whatever group is appropriate, since It Is Obvious that Unmoderated Groups are Evil (even though I have proposed a scheme to alleviate the problems cited with the old unmoderated newsgroups)). *sigh* From the far corners of the universe, -- Dave Taylor