Re: csa2 unification (was Re: Shareware Solutions II)

[nathan@visi.com (Nathan Mates)]

In article <50e1d1$i42@newsbf02.news.aol.com>,
RUBYWAND <rubywand@aol.com> wrote:
>     Maybe so. On the other hand, many csa2 readers do not subscribe to
>'marketplace. If product release announcements were confined to
>'marketplace, many of us would never hear about new stuff. The same goes
>for II publication 'info-mercials'.

   If they don't read it, then it's their loss.

>     It may be time to reconsider the utility of csa2 sub-groups. Items of
>general interest (such as ORCA, Platinum Paint, Spectrum, ... upgrades,
>release of Golden Orchard 2, a new Alltech memory board, and info on II
>publications) really do belong in main csa2. At present, many new product
>announcements and related discussions end up in csa2 _and_ one or more
>sub-groups.

   So there's a crossposting or few occasionally. I fail to see a
problem.

>     Unlike the situation in PC-land and, perhaps, Mac-ville, programming
>is of interest to most csa2 subsribers. At present, discussions often
>migrate back and forth between csa2 and csa2.programmer; and, many
>postings appear in both groups.

   We created these subgroups a few years ago for a reason: less
clutter on csa2, more places for others talk about things. If that
means that people have to subscribe to a few more groups, so what?  It
takes a second or so for me to swap newsgroups; if your newsreader
makes it painful to read multiple groups, maybe you should consider an
upgrade.

   Most of the stuff that goes back and forth between csa2.programmer
and csa2 is stuff that was NOT programming related being sent to
csa2.p, and it was moved back to csa2 where it was relevant. Very
little goes the other way. 

>     Similar problems show up in other areas; yet, the actual number of
>sub-group postings is not overwhelming. In short, it probably makes good
>sense to de-certify all subgroups except 'binaries:
>Posters would no longer need to reel-off duplicates to make sure 'the
>message gets out'.

   You do NOT need duplicates to send to multiple groups. It's
something called crossposting. In a competent newsreader, to
crosspost, all you need to do is put the newsgroups separated by
commas in the field/line for newsgroups to send the post to. If your
newsreader is atrocious (aka Netscrape), you might not be able to do
that. Pretty much for any system that Netscrape runs on, you can find
a _real_ newsreader with that functionality for about the same price.

>Csa2 newbies would not need to be told that they should post a question to
>comp.sys.apple2.wordprocessor.font.families.big.new (or whatever).

   Most newbies (except for the idiots who can't tell the difference
between 'apple2' and 'mac' when spelling) are in the right place. It's
no big deal to give them the clue or tell them to read the FAQ.

>Users who subscribe to several subgroups would not need to steam while
>2nd, 3rd, ... duplicates download and then go through the bother of
>weeding them out. 

   Once again, it's called proper crossposting. If you crosspost an
article, it is read _ONCE_ in the first newsgroup you run across it.
In the other newsgroups, that article should be properly marked as
read. Also, except for new product discussions, it's rare that
articles _need_ to be crossposted anyhow. (We went through some stuff
a while back as to why comp.sys.apple2.gno was NOT the appropriate
place for product announcements). 

>     In fact, a user who, today, subscribes to csa2 and any csa2
>subgroup(s) would, most likely, experience a significantly more friendly
>environment. There would be a savings in net time and much less off-line
>hassle with a unified csa2.

   Nope, things are fine as is. The reasoning behind making such a
change was that newbies wouldn't have to wade through all the forsale,
programming discussions, and the like if they just wanted Apple II
news. With people and the software to do so, the occasional crosspost
is NOT a problem. 

   Heck, why don't we unify all of usenet into one group while we're
at it. I think newbies would _LOVE_ to learn about the programming of
unix boxes, how to feed their pet goldfish, and get a few pictures all
at once. With such volume, none of them would ever want to post, which
would save us all the trouble of dealing with them or their getting a
clue. :)

Nathan Mates
--
<*> Nathan Mates http://www.visi.com/~nathan/      <*>
# What are the facts? Again and again and again-- what are the _facts_?
# Shun wishful thinking, avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors
# think-- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  -R.A. Heinlein