Aihps3.183
net.news
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!ihps3!pcl
Mon Jan 11 22:01:09 1982
Re: Usenet policy - pers vs. net
I for one vote against the proposed distinction as not reflecting anything
meaningful. Mark originally classified fa.telecom in the pers category,
which it may well be for many, but for those of us in the switching division(s)
of Bell Labs it's probably one of the MOST business-related news groups on the
net.
Even though I pick on that one example, I think the problem is a more general
one of simply having a number of categories of material. This categoriazation
IS worth reflecting in our news group names, but I think it should be more open
ended than suggested so far. For example, where would the medical practice
discussion group (proposed some time back by Duke but not (yet) activated)
be placed? Is it 'pers'? For me it would be, but not for the medical
professionals involved. Is it 'net' then? Not if 'net' is for computer
science/software engineering topics.
It seems to me that we should form our categorizations by content, and not
by its significance to the reader (the two dimensions which are confounded
by the net-pers distinction). Thus, we could have csse.* for computer science
and software engineering, med.* for medical topics, rec.* for recreation
topics, sports.* for sports, and etc. (i.e. that's where I get stuck
thinking of names, although there are a number of news groups not accounted for
yet).
(Note: I don't intend any of the above to be critical of Mark. He is to
be commended for having the courage to put out his ideas for
discussion.)
Paul Lustgarten
Bell Labs - Indian Hill
-----------------------------------------------------------------
gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen <
[email protected]>
of
http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/
This Usenet Oldnews Archive
article may be copied and distributed freely, provided:
1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles.
2. The following notice remains appended to each copy:
The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996
Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.
