posted
Was it ever said how big the original Nomad probe was supposed to be? I was just thinking about how small the combined Nomad/Tan Ru appeared to be in comparison to probes launched today.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
While I agree that threads should stay on topic (as they do in any intelligent discussion), the way to do it in Flare is this: people who want to stay on topic should reply only to people who stay on topic and completely ignore the distractors.
The problem is also in the list system -- an advantage of the old newsgroup system is that replies can be made to specific people, and were besides that a lot more coherent than in the new list system, where people can easily forget what other people have said and simply list their opinions instead of answering to and questioning the opinions of others. While there is still some of this, it seems that all too often consensus is reached through simple majority of the initial opinions, or through acceptance of the most creative opinion, rather than a process where everybody attacks each other's opinions mercilessly until the strongest theories with a lot of evidence survive.
posted
Which is great. Unless, of course, people simply ignored each others comments in the newsgroup. Posts could quite often get burried under 100s of others, and people might miss posts.
Another advantage of the listing system is that you don't actually need to put a signiture with your name at the end of your posts.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Under the newsgroup system, I could've simply ignored the people who replied off-topic and directly replied to the last person who posted on-topic. The people who want to stay off-topic would have to continue in their own little subthread. As in:
Relevant Relevant Relevant Relevant Relevant ... Irrelevant Irrelevant Irrelevant ... Even More Irrelevant Even More Irrelevant Even More Irrelevant ...
This way, everyone has their own space.
Under the list system, the relevant and the irrelevant bits are clumped together. That means a lot of visual skipping. Furthermore, the list doesn't allow encourage replies to specific people, which makes it possible for someone to skim through what has been said without really reading it.
Under the newsgroup system, discussions with the couple of people whose comments interest me are made efficient and will produce results that I'm interested in. The people who strayed off-topic can likewise have their own separate discussions and get the answers they want. The end result is that if the discussion about the Defiant's registry splits into a discussion about the registry, size, and class, we obtain some kind of a consensus on all three (well, there are other issues aside from the format, but the abovementioned format does help).
The list is fine for keeping everything together, but perhaps it could be reorganized so that one can reply to particular people and see those replies listed underneath those people's posts.
Or, if you really want the UBB style, then a moderator is required to point out when the discussion has strayed off-topic, sum up the issues at hand, and generally lead the discussion towards a consensus of some kind. UBB is not much different from roundtable discussions, and ought to be governed by similar rules.
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posted
Or, if you want to respond to particular posters, you simply include a mention of <name:> in your post, then type whatever you have to say and be done with it.
I don't really see what the big deal is though. Threads possess a natural tendency to wander. In fact, I have yet to encounter a newsgroup where STRICTLY relevant discussions don't eventually degenerate into irrelevant blabbering.
PS: Were I a moderator, I'd point out that your last two messages were decidedly off-topic.
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
I believe Usenet etiquette holds that meta-topics are always on-topic. Though I am not sure that applies here. Frankly, it has never come up much.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Sure, threads have a tendency to wander, which is why newsgroups allow for replies to specific people -- the result is that the subthreads are sorted properly and thus everybody is happy. By comparison, the "K'mpec: shut up Targ: that's interesting" style is primitive compared to the specific reply option.
The UBB keeps everything together in a big list and allows for html and images which is good, but structurally it's relatively primitive and requires either a redesign or a moderator to work as well. Google Groups are using the traditional threading while keeping things in a list. It seems to work, and might be interesting to try over here.
The only problem is that the sense of community would be lost if a thread were to be sorted like that, what with all the tiny groups of people talking in each of the subthreads. Rec.arts.startrek.tech feels like a much bigger place, although it probably isn't that much bigger. The latest-reply order sort of forces everybody to read what the previous person has said, but if we want to keep things constructive, then the last person had better say something constructive rather than start a separate topic. Otherwise, we get a watered-down thread.
posted
But this is closer to an actual discussion. Newsgroups are more like, well, people puting a piece of paper on a wall, and then others putting paper either underneath or off to the side or...
Sorry, I can't think of a decent analogy.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
Registered: Mar 1999
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