From: pgr@prg.ox.ac.uk (Partially Grown Rhododendron) Subject: Re: Splitting comp.os.linux, again Date: 26 Oct 1992 01:42:48 GMT
In <1992Oct25.232430.18459@athena.mit.edu>, M. Saggaf <alsaggaf@athena.mit.edu>
writes:
> In Usenet, there is no correlation between where people should post,
> and where they actually do. People WILL post countless articles about
> X problems in c.o.l, even though they SHOULD post in *.xfree. People
> WILL post hundreds of articles about programming in the linux group, no
> matter how many times you tell them where they SHOULD post. If we ignore
> this and not create groups for these topics, all these posts would
> end up in c.o.l.misc, and we might as well not split the current group
> at all.
By that reasoning, lets create c.o.l.rec.aquaria, on the grounds that
some people who use Linux do recreational things with fish. After all,
it is much too hard for them to find the right newsgroup.
I frequently mail people in c.o.l telling them the appropriate place to
ask questions (and generally extracting the relevant part of the FAQ to
answer their questions) -- I will continue to do so. Amazingly enough,
people do tend to listen.
> [ *.programmer
> To discuss various topics related to using gcc, porting applications
> (where is SIGBUS?, what corresponds to sgtty in POSIX?, ..etc), and
> programming in the Unix environment in general (many people who come
> to linux have only programmed in DOS before). Crossposts from this
> group to comp.lang.c and comp.unix.wizards would make sense.]
It would seem to me that the whole traffic could be diverted to
comp.unix.programmer and comp.lang.c -- why a Linux specific one?
Create an FAQ with where to ask questions...
> [To discuss the various applications available for linux and their
> merits (is olvwm better than vtwm?), wither they have been ported (is
> there any BBS software for linux?), and where they could be found.]
What has olvwm vs vtwm got to do with Linux?? Nothing. Why put it
under the linux hierarchy, then?
> Available for linux does not mean linux-specific.
Which means that every program that can be compiled for Unix can be
discussed in this newsgroup. Surely not a good idea! Or will
crossposts be expected to the appropriate newsgroup? In which case, why
bother posting to the c.o.l hierarchy ...
[...]
> >> *.hardware
> >How much Linux specific hardware is there? None that I can see.
> [This is a very relevant group. This will mainly discuss what hardware
> linux runs on (does linux support AHA1522? does linux run on EISA
> machines? ..etc.), [...etc...] There will be crossposts
> from this group to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.]
Do it via an FAQ. The number of articles on this subject are minimal
enough to be able to keep in the mainstream .misc newsgroup -- I certainly
don't find myself swamped by these sorts of questions in the newsgroup.
phil