Re: Mores of comp.arch
- From: eugene@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Eugene Miya)
- Date: 7 Aug 2006 11:41:28 -0700
In article <1154907741.511689.73440@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
David Kanter <dkanter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Over time, the comp.arch community has evolved a set of unwritten rules
for posting. In recent times, some of these rules have been discussed
and almost formalized...such as when to use ~ or ! in the topic of a
post.
There are some other NGs that have somewhat informal rules, I believe
Eugene Miya maintains a set at comp.sys.super and comp.parallel, or at
least is interested in developing some.
So I'm curious, what kind of rules would you want for posting at
comp.arch?
I would start with:
1. No homework problems - you get what you pay for
2. Use a search engine first if you have a question
Suggestions or comments?
Para 1: I am not certain by what you mean by "evolved."
The use of ! and ~ come from the C programmers from the group.
They are merely short hand.
I'm not even clear what you mean by unwritten rules.
What are you trying to accomplish?
Well, I moderate comp.parallel now. I started the FAQs as an experiment
(on going) for a low traffic moderated news group. It offers
interesting experiences you guys never see. I am not specifically
interested in developing rules or new rules. I am aware of the
development over time of netiquette, most of which get violated.
I think Erik is in London at the moment.
Usenet is best described as semi-organized chaos.
So for example, posts should generally be limited to 100 KB because
that's about the limit of many news systems. Bigger posts sometimes
don't propagate as well. The only posts that get that big tend to be
binaries: photos, executables, music, videos, etc. That's why the
optional alt.* hierarchy of groups got created by John Gilmore (sure,
I still see John 2-3 times per year, he lives up in SF, we go to many of
the same functions like the Flash Mob super).
You should trim down attribution. I don't care whether you post on the
top or the bottom of attribution, but you can think of amusing line
reversal experiments. There are news groups for newbies trying to use news.
Skip posts. You don't have to read everything serially.
This isn't a news paper.
I debated a c.a. FAQ, and I'm not a computer architect. Sure I see Mash
and Hennessy, and others from time to time, but they are far better
architects than me (well, let me ask friends of Cray what they think of
Mash's football quote). c.a. is unmoderated. You should all know,
understand what that means. Means you can just about post whatever you
want. No central authority controls usenet. Your given ISP does not
control usenet. They at best only control a tiny portion.
As a contrast: I have some authority controlling comp.parallel, and that
authority is recognized by a large number of other net.news maintainers
(so I can cook moose turd pie). So the concept of an "off topic" post
or an "on topic" post in comp.arch is practically meaningless.
Cross posts are a feature for the newbies among you. Neat one.
OT has a different meaning to the moderated groups like c.p.
It also means that c.p. has agreements with moderators of other groups
to honor cross posts to speed sending articles out, so John Levine and
I approve each others relevant cross posts, as the comp.ai.* and I'm
lucky to have one of the last approvals for news.announce.conferences.
If you don't like policies of a given ISP, change ISPs.
Change news readers if you have to. Learn about features: searching,
kill files, cancels, etc. This is not a mailing list. It's not a listserv.
Read other news groups. Not just in the comp.* hierarchy.
Know where to refer people with obsure PC questions (or other machines).
Know, roughly the comp.sys.* hierarchy.
The pecking order of the hierarchies are the news.* groups. That's
where admins discuss the relevant issues of news groups.
Homework:
That's a tricky issue.
My co-moderator, Dave Bader, takes a hard line on this in c.p.
No homework posts in c.p. Period. He won't allow them. So that's an
incentive to me to not take a vacation as I tend to think that's a bit
harsh. I cut and pasted a statement (not a bad one) from
sci.military.moderated (another group with "history"). I know other
groups have these, you can find them on various news archives.
If the group wants to develop an FAQ, you can coordinate with
comp.answers (which is moderated) and the rest of the *.answers (which
are laregly moderated) and comp.archives hierarchy.
It's optional. But I would avoid suggesting any complex group approval
structure. You need to allow the most liberal posting/thinking policy
possible. If noise becomes a problem, then you can think about
moderated group policies. Use kill files. Push for features in readers
or write the code yourself.
I likely left lots out. Find old netiquette posts.
Remember: google doesn't control usenet groups.
--
.
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