Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!mit-eddi!smh From: smh@mit-eddi.UUCP (Steven M. Haflich) Newsgroups: net.news.group Subject: Re: UN*X-neophytes Message-ID: <230@mit-eddi.UUCP> Date: Wed, 8-Jun-83 21:21:15 EDT Article-I.D.: mit-eddi.230 Posted: Wed Jun 8 21:21:15 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 9-Jun-83 05:33:22 EDT References: ut-ngp.334 Lines: 34 I think all this discussion about a Unix neophytes group is somewhat missing the real problem. The Usenet is used for many kinds of messages, but a useful taxonomy is to divide items: 1) General broadcasts, either supplying or requesting information, but which the author really wants *everyone* on the net to see. 2) Requests for some simple information, a single reply to which will satisfy the original author. Clearly, requests for survey information (e.g. "Everybody tell me about your experience with United Frobulator tape punches, and I'll summarize to the net") want general distribution and are type (1). Other requests (e.g. "Does anybody know why my 4.1c United Frobulator device driver won't rewind past reflective markers?") are type (2) and can frequently be answer by wizards within a few net hops, unless the question is absurdly esoteric. The important point here is that, at least very often, the author KNOWS he will likely get an answer within a few hops, yet the query slowly trickles over about 500 net connections at great expense and wasting 5000 programmer's time. Unix-neophyte questions are the most concentrated source of such queries -- but clearly the problem is more general. I don't have a very good solution for the problem, alas. The only mechanism in place is the collection of local nets (e.g. ne.general) which effectively limit distribution. Alternatively, a `hop count limit' could be added to the news software, but we all know how hard it is to propagate such news system changes, and anyway, most users would not take the extra effort to specify such a distribution limit. Perhaps this aspect can be chewed around a little. At the very least, for areas with well-defined local nets, unix-neophyte or some such groupname could be translated into a local group (either ne.general, ne.wanted, or ne.unix-wizards, etc.), and we could see how it works? Steve Haflich, genrad!mit-eddie!smh