Autzoo.1423
net.general
utcsrgv!utzoo!henry
Tue Feb 23 20:13:40 1982
replying to news
Well, I got quite a few replies to my news item complaining about people
who send replies by news when they ought to use mail. Summarized:
The replies ran better than 2-to-1 strongly in agreement with my gripe.
There were several comments that B news makes followups to the whole
network so easy that it takes self-discipline not to show off in this way.
Some people agreed in general but observed that there are OCCASIONAL
items of general interest that originate this way. [This is true.]
Several people observed that we see the news followups but not the mail
ones, which gives a distorted picture of the relative proportions.
A few people lit their afterburners. There was criticism of the idea
of making news followup harder, on the grounds that deliberately making
software *harder* to use was a backward and "un-unixy" idea. One began:
"Hey, Henry. This is the UNIX community, not the Third Reich." [Anyone
who was at the USENIX BOF session on Usenet can probably figure out who
wrote *that* one.] The rest of that letter said, in essence, that the
solution to the problem is self-discipline rather than software that is
a pain to use. This was a common theme.
My turn again:
My specific suggestions for news-program design were exaggerated for
effect, but I think the basic principle is valid: it should take a
bit more (not necessarily a *lot* more) effort to pollute EVERYBODY's
news system than to pollute just one mailbox. Self-discipline is a
key requirement, but software design can strongly influence the amount
of self-discipline that is required. Nudging things in the right direction
does not require making news followup so much harder that it's a pain.
Further comments and/or flames to decvax!utzoo!henry, NOT to the net,
as before. I'll summarize anything I get.
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