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. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen 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.