Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!genrad!decvax!harpo!floyd!cmcl2!philabs!seismo!hao!hplabs!hpda!fortune!amd70!packet!cfv From: cfv@packet.UUCP Newsgroups: net.news.group Subject: new and unused groups Message-ID: <240@packet.UUCP> Date: Mon, 20-Jun-83 17:51:33 EDT Article-I.D.: packet.240 Posted: Mon Jun 20 17:51:33 1983 Date-Received: Wed, 22-Jun-83 06:20:07 EDT Lines: 82 Having just received the latest list of active newsgroups, I went through it and compared it to reality on my system. My system is relatively new (on the net about a month) and has been running with automatic creation of new groups, so I think that what my system shows is close to what is really happening on the network as far as traffic is concerned (assuming my system gets most of the messages). The following groups show up in my list that aren't on the official list: net.bicycle net.lisp net.trivia net.groups.control net.gdead As of now, with the exception of net.bicycle which seems to be well on the way to official status, I have zapped these. net.lisp and net.trivia have counterparts elsewhere, and everything except net.gdead could have shown up accidently by someone mis-remembering the topic name. net.gdead? who knows where that came from.... What was more interesting was the comparison of the list of official topics and which topics were being used. Here is a list of all topics on the official list that have had no activity since my system came up: fa.arpa-bboard fa.bitgraph fa.digest-p fa.energy fa.info-terms fa.railroad fa.sf-lovers fa.telecom fa.teletext net.adm.site net.ai net.analog net.announce net.applic net.bugs net.bugs.2bsd net.chess net.college net.columbia net.decus net.games.emp net.games.pacman net.games.pbm net.lang.apl net.micro.432 net.rec net.rec.birds net.rec.bridge net.rec.caves net.rec.scuba net.rec.ski net.research net.rumor net.sport net.sport.football net.sport.hockey net.std net.ucds net.usoft.s net.vvs net.wobegon With the recent grumblings about the large number of topics on the net, perhaps it is time to rethink the existence of some of the lesser used topics, and see whether or not they can still be justified (for example, do we really need net.columbia AND net.space?). We might also want to re-classify some of them into more appropriate locations (could net.startrek be moved to net.tv.startrek and net.chess be moved to net.games.chess, for example?). As the number of people using the system grows and the number of topics expand, there will be a growing need for something like a sunset clause so that topics that have fallen out of use (like net.wobegon[???]) or aren't really used very much can be recycled.... -- >From the dungeons of the Warlock: Chuck Von Rospach ucbvax!amd70!packet!cfv (chuqui@mit-mc) <- obsolete!