From: geoff@peck.com (Geoff Peck)
Subject: RATIONALE: rec.aviation reorganization
Followup-To: poster
Organization: Geoffrey G. Peck, Consultant, San Jose CA
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 03:01:29 GMT

[This is a repeat of the previous Rationale for the rec.aviation
reorganization.  If you read the previous article and voted, you need 
not read any further.] 

This article is intended to share with net.readers some of the thinking
which went into the proposed rec.aviation re-organization which is
described in the accompanying Call for Votes (CFV).

First, I'd like to thank the literally hundreds of netters who participated in
the process.  A number of individuals put in many thoughtful hours, and I'd
like to especially thank them for their time, comments, and support:  Robert
Dorsett, Christophe Pettus, Jordan Brown, Stephen Fenwick, Rich Miller, Ian
Kluft, and Werner Uhrig.  (If I've left someone out, my apologies!)

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
----------------------

Over the last several years, the issue of splitting rec.aviation into
multiple subgroups has been raised in a number of different contexts.  The
Request for Discussion (RFD) which appeared last month and the
accompanying Call for Votes (CFV) are an attempt to handle this split in a
comprehensive manner.  The RFD/CFV mechanism is one which has been created
over time and is the generally accepted practice on the net for creating
new newsgroups.

Rec.aviation is far from the first rec. group to realize that subdivision
is necessary.  Quite a few rec. groups have already divided themselves
into subgroups, including rec.arts (and there are even second-level
subdivisions for .comics, .movies, .sf, .startrek, and .tv), rec.audio,
rec.autos, rec.bicycles, rec.boats, rec.crafts, rec.food, rec.games,
rec.humor, rec.models, rec.music, rec.pets, rec.radio, rec.sport, and
rec.video.  So we are far from the first group to have explored this
issue -- we are not going where no newsgroup has gone before. [ :-) ]

Since the RFD was issued, a great deal of input has been obtained from
readers of rec.aviation through multiple channels:
 
  -  Robert Dorsett issued a survey which attempted to assess preferences
     for new newsgroups; over a hundred netters responded to this survey.

  -  Substantial discussion has occurred via e-mail and on news.groups;
     I've accumulated over two megabytes of e-mail on this subject during
     this period.  (If I didn't get back to you on your e-mail, my
     apologies -- now you know why...)

  -  I've spoken in person with over a hundred netters, many of them
     at Oshkosh.

The CFV is based on inputs from all of these sources, plus my own
experience as a frequent reader and contributor to rec.aviation over the
last several years.

One striking theme of the discussions with different individuals was that
there is no simple consensus of "the following few groups would be good"
-- indeed, the responses tended to be quite diverse.  Most people were
willing to accept a few groups in addition to those which they felt were
important, although none wanted to have a very large number of groups.  As
expected, the primary motivations for group creation were two in number:

    (1) I want to see the stuff which would go in this group, so I'd like
	it to be separate so I can find it easily; also, a separate group
	will tend to foster traffic in this area.

    (2) I _don't_ want to see this stuff, so please cull it out so I can
	ignore it, or I can read it at a lower priority.

Naturally, each individual had different opinions of which topics belonged
in which categories; some people said "well, leave everything *I* want to
read alone, and make groups to take away the other stuff".  We have a very
diverse readership here in rec.aviation, and there were quite a few
different sets of opinions on what the new newsgroups, pro or con, should
be.  The reorganization described here is designed to meet the needs of
the as many netters as possible.

SURVEY RESULTS AND THE PROPOSED NEWSGROUPS
------------------------------------------

One of the simplest questions which will come up is "how do the survey
results and the RFD map to what is being proposed?"

Here is a listing of the top "vote-getters" in the survey:

    CFV  group           disposition  # votes    rating    sum / #
    ---  -----           -----------  -------    -------   --------
    YES  soaring                      73 votes   567 sum   7.77 avg
    YES  answers                      67 votes   511 sum   7.63 avg
    YES  ifr                          53 votes   369 sum   6.96 avg
	 digest            (deleted)  50 votes   323 sum   6.46 avg
    YES  homebuilt                    50 votes   360 sum   7.20 avg
    YES  ownership    renamed owning  50 votes   293 sum   5.86 avg
    YES  products                     50 votes   303 sum   6.06 avg
    YES  events     renamed announce  47 votes   288 sum   6.13 avg
	 humor             (deleted)  45 votes   273 sum   6.07 avg
	 powered         -> piloting  44 votes   322 sum   7.32 avg
	 regulatory     -> ifr, misc  43 votes   281 sum   6.53 avg
    YES  training    renamed student  41 votes   251 sum   6.12 avg
	 airliners         (deleted)  39 votes   224 sum   5.74 avg
    YES  piloting                     39 votes   312 sum   8.00 avg
	 software      -> simulators  39 votes   204 sum   5.23 avg
	 theory          -> piloting  38 votes   266 sum   7.00 avg
	 safety          -> piloting  37 votes   260 sum   7.03 avg
	 atc       -> piloting / ifr  33 votes   173 sum   5.24 avg
    YES  military                     33 votes   171 sum   5.18 avg
	 vfr             -> piloting  33 votes   238 sum   7.21 avg
	 maintenance       -> owning  32 votes   212 sum   6.62 avg
    YES  simulators                   32 votes   167 sum   5.22 avg

CFV          "YES" indicates that the group is included in the CFV
group        the group name listed in the survey
disposition  what happened to the group?  see below for more details.
# votes      total # of netters who listed the group in the survey
rating       sum of the 1 .. 10 "score" given to each group
sum / #      the rating divided by the number of votes, sort of a
	     "net strength of opinion" of those who voted

Two groups were added to the list above to form the final list of
newsgroups in the CFV:

rec.aviation.stories
    A number of netters brought up this group as a very strong desire at
    Oshkosh.  People felt that one of the greatest strengths of the net was
    the "I was there" stories -- stories which are very different from the
    semi-sanitized accounts one sees in commercial magazines.  The desire
    was to have a forum for these longer stories, one in which (a) it could
    be ensured that they'd be easily found, (b) they wouldn't be intermixed
    with other stuff, and (c) they wouldn't get drowned out by follow-ups.
    A moderated newsgroup makes sense in this case, and also will allow a
    final formatting check to be done to ensure that the articles are easy
    to read (line lengths, etc.).

rec.aviation.misc
    This didn't show up in the same list as the "vote-getters", but on the
    corresponding question at the top of the survey, 74 netters expressed
    a positive interest in having a .misc group.

Here's a brief summary of what happened to the groups above which _didn't_
make it into the CFV:

rec.aviation.digest
    Although this was well-received and appeared to be a good idea, the
    logistics of actually making it work were intolerably complex.  (Read:
    does anyone have a full-time staff of four ...)

rec.aviation.humor
    It was felt that keeping the humor "in line" with other groups would be
    preferable at this point.

rec.aviation.powered, .theory, .safety, .atc, .vfr
    All combined into rec.aviation.piloting.  The survey had many names for
    similar themes; .piloting seemed to be the single heading which would
    cover all of them the best.

rec.aviation.regulatory
    It's hoped that these discussions will be split over a number of
    groups, primarily .ifr and .misc; if traffic volume warrants
    reconsideration of this group in the future, it could be brought back.

rec.aviation.airliners
    Another RFD is currently outstanding on this group.  Voting will be
    delayed until the results of this RFD are known.

rec.aviation.software
    Subsumed by .simulators.  There's relatively little traffic on
    non-simulator software issues; it can go in .misc.

rec.aviation.maintenance
    Subsumed by .owning.

Why are some of the group names in the CFV changed?

 -  Two of the new group names were chosen particularly to conform to existing
    standard practices on the net:  .announce and .answers.

 -  .training was changed to .student to make it easier to figure out where
    to post articles -- .training was a bit too broad a topic, whereas
    .student really does suggest student-pilot issues, and these
    student-pilot issues do occupy a significant fraction of net.volume

Why were certain groups retained?

 -  .ifr was retained because there was significant input in *all* channels
    that (a) VFR-only pilots were incredibly bored by IFR-talk, and (b) new
    IFR pilots were _fascinated_ by IFR-talk, and wanted to read it first

 -  .military was retained because rec.aviation has historically had a not
    insignificant number of military-related posts.  These posts are
    readily identifiable, and are either (a) of tremendous interest or (b)
    of little or no interest to many netters ("If I could have just one
    group of articles I didn't have to read...").  Sci.military has been
    suggested as an appropriate forum for such articles, but it hasn't
    been effective in drawing this traffic, even though it is mentioned as
    the appropriate forum in the Netiquette posting.

COMMON QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
----------------------------

Q:  "If the reorganization occurs, will I have difficulty obtaining
     rec.aviation?
     (a) I read news using a newsreader.
     (b) I obtain news via the aviation-digest mailing list."

A:  If you read news using a newsreader, if your site now receives
    rec.aviation, it should _automatically_ receive the new newgroups.
    Most sites automatically create subgroups within groups which they
    already accept, and this reorganization retains the "base name" of the
    existing group -- rec.aviation.

    If you read news using the aviation-digest mailing list, you will be
    able to receive similar digests of each of the new newsgroups.  You
    may subscribe selectively, or you may receive all of them.

Q:  "Will it be hard to figure out which subgroup to post a message
     to?  Won't a reorganization decrease the "cross-fertilization" of
     rec.aviation?"

A:  Well, yes, when starting a new thread, the poster will have to
    _think_ for a moment as to which subgroup is the most appropriate
    topic for this subject.  (Asking the poster to think a bit before
    posting may be a very good idea, you know...)  If the subject is truly
    germane to multiple newsgroups, then the poster can crosspost it to
    multiple groups.  Most modern newsreaders are set up so that when one
    reads an article which has been crossposted to multiple groups, the
    reader will see the article only once, in the group in which it is
    first read.

    If the multiple newsgroups are used properly, we should see a
    reduction in the rather amazing "subject drift" which frequently
    occurs on rec.aviation.   Cross-fertilization will occur when someone
    says "gee, I should start a new thread -- and it should be posted to
    both the newsgroup I'm reading now and this other group".  Also, I
    suspect that many readers will actually read most of the new
    subgroups, albeit with varying degrees of attention.

Q:  "Gee, I'd like to see a reorganization, but can't you do it with
     five or six groups?"

A:  The problem is *which* five or six groups.  After getting input from a
    wide range of netters, I honestly don't believe that an _effective_
    reorganization can be done with that small a list.  The list below is
    really not too large -- it's only 9 groups, plus 3 moderated groups
    and .misc.  I'm quite happy to regard this as an _initial_ cut at
    reorganizing rec.aviation.  Once the re-organization been in place for
    long enough for some experience to be gained, I would not be surprised
    if people will want changes -- add a group, delete a group, etc.
    Let's just start _somewhere_.  And that somewhere is here.

Q:  "Why didn't you include rec.aviation.xyzzy", for some set of xyzzy's.

A:  The bottom line is that my own estimation was that there wasn't quite
    enough interest out there for xyzzy.  If you think that a group not
    listed above should be created (for example, helicopters,
    hang-gliding, and so on), you are welcome to go through the RFD/CFV
    process on such a group -- I'd be happy to help you to figure out how
    to do this.

Q:  "Why _three_ moderated groups?"

A:  The three groups serve quite distinct purposes.  Most readers will
    probably place .announce near the top of their reading lists, since
    it will be low-volume and will contain short articles.  Readers will
    accord .stories a special place, since they'll want to take the time to
    sit down and enjoy the few articles which are posted to that group.
    And readers will want to consult .answers when they have a particular
    question which they may guess has been asked before -- or when they
    wish to start exploring a new area.

Q:  "Why aren't there more moderated groups?"

A:  I believe that on the most part that we have a really good group of
    individuals on the net, and trust them to post appropriately.
    Sometimes, this doesn't happen, but this is relatively rare.  In my
    opinion, a group should be moderated only when the group's charter
    inherently requires careful filtering of content -- announcements
    (i.e., rec.aviation.events), automated dissemination
    (rec.aviation.answers), or editorial and style control
    (rec.aviation.stories).  Ideally, a moderated group would should
    sufficiently low traffic that most readers are happy to read it first --
    before any unmoderated groups.

    An alternative philosophy to group moderation is to use it as a
    mechanism to reduce "noisy" posts.  One caveat here is that one
    person's signal may be another person's noise.  If a group which is
    created by this re-organization turns out to be "noisy", an RFD/CFV
    can be done to convert that troup to moderated.  I suggest that it's
    preferable to try most groups as an unmoderated group first and see if
    (a) moderation is _really_ necessary and (b) a moderator volunteers.

Q:  "Why did you include rec.aviation.qwerty, which may have low volume?  Why
    not combine it with another group?"

A:  Sometimes a narrowly-focussed group with low traffic is a good idea.
    Except for rec.aviation.answers, the moderated groups will all be
    low-volume affairs, with one or two posts per week.  This allows
    readers to put these groups at the front of their reading lists, and to
    see things which are posted to these groups right away.  Other
    lower-volume groups still have merit, particularly if they have a
    narrow focus.  People who are particularly interested in those areas
    will read them first; those who are not interested will read them last
    or not at all.
    
Q:  "Do you ever sleep?"

A:  No.  I nev... zzzzzz...  :-)

OBLIGATORY LOBBYING COMMENT
---------------------------

A tremendous amount of work has gone into this CFV.  I really _do_ believe
that splitting rec.aviation is the right thing to do, and that the
_entire_ set of newsgroups proposed in the CFV is the best way to do it.
I sincerely hope that a sufficient number of netters will agree.

COMMENTS
--------

Comments?  I'm sure readers do have public comments on the vote, and, as
you know, there is an appropriate place on the net to post such comments:

			    news.groups

Please, gentle reader, DO NOT post comments to ANY other newsgroups.  And
if you do post to news.groups, include "rec.aviation" in the Subject: line
so that interested readers can easily pick out your article.

Private comments/questions/accolades/flames may be sent to geoff@peck.com
(or to geoff@apple.com).

						Geoff
Newsgroups: news.groups,news.admin.policy