From: dmsilev@athena.mit.edu (Daniel M Silevitch)
Subject: Split Survey results (2 of 2)
Keywords: Survey, split
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 01:12:53 GMT

Results of Comp.sys.ibm.pc.games split survey - raw data

(My comments on this survey to appear in a seperate post.)

Total number of responses recieved: 146

Question #1: Do you support a split of this group?

Yes                     107
No                      39

Question #2: What type of split do you support (genre, manufacturer,
other)?
           
Genre                             112
Message Type*                       6
Manufacturer                        5
Other/None                         22

*Split according to .announce, .reviews, .hints, .discussion (or .d) etc.

Question #3: What sub-groups would you like to see created?

.misc                             61
.adventure                        55
.rpg   (.crpg)                    50
.flight (.flight_sim)             50
.simulation                       45
.arcade                           43
.strategic (.strategy)            39
.advocacy                         27
.action                           26
.announce (.news, .info) 
          (moderated)             22
.forsale (.market)                17
.military (.wargames)             15
.sports                           12
.discussion (.d)                   9
.hints                             9
.piracy (.piracy.debate)           8
.puzzle                            6
.compatability                     5
.ethics                            5
.bugs (.patches incl.)             4
.cracks                            4
.network                           4
.reviews                           4
.sci-fi                            4
.civilization                      3
.commercial                        2
.driving                           2
.educational                       2
.microprose                        2
.modem                             2
.origin                            2
.shareware                         2
.cdrom                             1
.cinema                            1
.demos                             1
.dynamix                           1
.futures                           1
.multimedia                        1
.oldergames                        1
.other  (not .misc)                1
.programmer                        1
.reorg.d                           1
.rumours                           1
.sierra                            1
.ssi                               1
.wolf3d                            1

Question #4: Do you use a kill-file?

Yes                       51
No                        76

Question #4a: If yes, is it effective?

Yes                       14
No                        19
Not very                  22

(Note: some people responded to 4a after answering no to 4)

Question #5: Any other comments?

(Selected comments, from various points of view, in no particular order)

I would definately vote against any split based on manufacturer.
I think that kind of split would go against my ideal of the net.

Even if the group gets split, I will still remain subscribed to all
the sub-groups.  Regardless fo how they get split.  I read this group
almost everyday, it averages about one hundred or so new articles
a day, depending on whether or not it's mid-term or final exam time.

I tire of sifting through miles and miles of piracy debates.

Using a kill file is much more efficient when the same number of
articles is split into several groups, even if one reads all the
groups created by the split.

- I don't really wish to have another messy split like just occured in 
the IBM hardware groups.

I don't really care how the group is split just so long as 
something is done and soon. 

Make crossposting a crime.

I am unsure of how avialable nice newsreaders like nn or trn are.  If
indeed, the vast majority of c.s.i.p.g readers are stuck with a
newsreader like rn, where there is no "thread-mode", then perhaps a
split is not out of the question.  If nn and trn are widely available,
no split is necessary. 

Please do this soon!  I'm all for it!

I think a split cannot  be logically done since computer games are
an ever-evolving topic.

The volume of csipg is quite manageable when I only look at the subject
lines and read the articles that interest me.

I feel that the recent volume of messages ABOUT reorganization is
seriously culpable for the unreasonable increase in volume.

PLEASE!!! Don't try to fix something that isn't broken.  This
thread is the result of people who don't know how to use their
newsreaders to filter out what they do not want. A split would
be detrimental not only to the group as a whole, but we would
have neophytes cross-posting and wasting even more net.bandwith.

Sorry, but I can't see any advantage to splitting this group. All that
would be accomplished would be creating a bunch of groups to read, rather
than just one. I think a vast majority of the readers of c.s.i.p.g have
varied enough game interests that they would pick up all the new groups,
rather than just a select few...

Encourage people to state clearly somehow in the header which game it's
about, if the post is indeed a bout a specific game.  This really isn't
an important group anyway, so people shouldn't complain too much about
the inconvenience reading it causes them.

The split is necessary, because the subject keywords have already
been suggested, but are not adhered to at all (and there is no way
to make sure that they are).  At least with a split, it is obvious
where posters should put things.

I usually like to play games of ALL GENRES, and I just
don't want to go to the trouble (or anyone with a reasonable mind) 
determining if the subject fit the group.

The main problem I see with a group split is the volatile nature of this
group. Some genres may cause a very low traffic, until suddenly a great new
game comes out which gives rise to a lot of discussion. An other problem
is how to determine in which subgroup a particular game fits. This will
probably become increasingly difficult as games become more comples (Is
Wing Commander a flight simulator, arcade game, interactive movie, or
what?).

I think it's good to read all the posts, becoz everytime I see something
I wanted to have for quite a while... If subgroups are to be
used, Me thinks this will disappear etc. !!!

I do not think a split is *necessary* although it may be *desireable*.

Let's get this split through soon.  While I'll probably end up reading all
of the new groups, at least I can minimize the number of things I have to
look for at any one time.

DO NOT MAKE groups like .bugs .patches .manufacturers etc., not 
fitting the above scheme, where you would have to read all of these
groups to find things in genres of interest.

My hope is that the brainless people will not be smart enough to
find the smaller subset of groups as easily, and even if they did
there would be less of them.

Do not create a .misc or .d subgroup. All the traffic will go there.
Remove c.s.i.p.g (the "root" group) in the process of splitting, otherwise
you end up with an unchanged csipg traffic and empty subgroups.

A split would be fine, if there were clean 'fault lines', but
I don't see any.

I think splitting is a bad idea. Look at comp.binaries.ibm.pc.* or 
misc.forsale*. Regardless of frequent postings as to what the charters on
those groups are, people post in one of the groups seemingly at random or
cross-post to all the groups. 

This is an excellent idea, as there seems to be enough interest in
particular classes of games ( in my case "adventure" games to provide
useful traffic, and save the time of sifting through the non-useful. 
I support it !

FABULOUS IDEA. On the other hand, since my tastes in gaming run the gamut,
I'd have to subscribe to all the new sub-groups

I believe the snots who always say "use a better newsreader" should go
hang.  Some of us (especially on the VMS side) have to make do with what
we got.  A separation into subgroups is much fairer and equitable for all.

If it is proposed to split csipg into more than four new groups, I will
vote no to all of them.

I believe that something must be done about this newsgroup.   
There has come a time when this group has grown too large to  
fully meet the needs of all its readers.  In order to meet these  
needs, the enormous volume of mail must be split into some form  
of hierarchy that organizes this mess into newsgroups that  
everyone can easily go through at their leisure.
                              Soapbox mode off now  :)

I can't understand why some people don't like the idea of split. There is
way too much traffic now. I go home for one week, and when I return, half
of the messages have already been deleted, only thousand or so remains. Ha.

I believe that a split would not appreciably reduce the volume of material 
bounding around. All a split would do is create a number of new groups for 
me to read and a pile of crosspostings to wade through.

I enjoy the group and find it helpful and infromative. 
I think with a little management(GASP) that more people 
could find it as helpful. 

 Just one: if there is a split keep the number of new news groups to
 an absolute minimum. Take a long, hard look at traffic levels and decide.
 Remember that people will usually end up posting in *.misc anyway.

The main worry of splitting groups is the fact that overall traffic
may increase due to cross-posting. Subject headers, while not being
used consistently, still do a pretty good job.

However...since I enjoy more then one genre of game across all
developers..I think a split is useless now. A good Kill file and a
threaded reader work fineZ!!!!

Might as well add a .piracy so we can confine the crap to one place.

It's probably not gonna work. There's just too many people that don't
know what type of games they're playing. Where would you put Wing
Commander, .arcade or .simulator? What about Privateer, .strategy or
.simulator? 

For .announce, who should be the moderator?

Cross-posting between groups is expected for some games (e.g.
is WC2 arcade or flight_sim or sci-fi?) but it is still better
than one big group.

Splitting the group would be really stupid, there would just be a
TON of cross-posted messages and things would just turn into a mess.

I *don't* want to see the group fragmented into a large number of
subgroups. I know it's a hassle having a large group, but a large group is 
a healthy group.  If you split it up too much, it's not worth everyone's
time to read, and so the quality goes down, and fewer people read, and the 
quality goes way down, and finally everyone abandons the group.
I enjoy the "cross-pollenization" that goes on, and I would hate to see
that end.  I *like* the diversity, and all the splits I've seen suggested
would weaken that diversity.

Watch out for the .net.police....

I think any split will be more of a pain in the ass than anything else.
But a split to Adventure, RPG (or would they form one?), Action/Arcade,
Sims wouldn't be too bad.  Then there would still be a catchall group
needed.  How does one separate flight and combat sims from Civ and
Simcity types?  Then there are sports games...

The comment that you'll get from the anti-split is that people should use
kill files.  Well, I use kill files, and every time a new game comes out
that I'm not interested in, I have to put it in there.  This is
particularly annoying since people spell the game differently.   For
example:
	X-Wing
	xwing
	xWing
	x Wing
	XWING

Do not split the group. All issues discussed in this group have a valid 
right to be here. If you want to enforce rules in regards to keywords in
the subject line to help people reduce unwanted posts, then I am in favour
of this 100%. Spliting the group will have very little effect other than 
frustation for those who like it the way it is. 

Any split of c.s.i.p.g is a bad idea. It would only work if groups were
moderated or strongly policed. Incidentally, remember what policing in
comp.binaries.ibm.pc.archives led to? ;-)

I think there's risk that there will be further splits in the future if
start do to it now. Suddenly everbody is requesting a subgroup for 'their' 
narrow topics. No, leave it as it is. (I really enjoy reading all these
comments and it's also a good indicator of the spread of the games)

These long NAMES are kind of tiresome too. Please don't make us type 
comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.role-playing.origin.recent for example.

More newsgroups would result in people who subscribe to all of them reading
articles that are crossposted and articles that are in the wrong group.

I think you need to point out to people that splitting
the group will _not_ stop them from reading all the
stuff they currently read because they can still
subscribe to all the groups.  It will just allow
more organization to the topics, make it easier
to find topics of interest, etc..

Any newsgroup that brings in several hundered messages per day is prime for
splitting IMHO. Additionally kill files just don't work for this group. I
killed VGAPl* and now its coming up as VGA Planets. <growl>


End of survey raw results.

Daniel Silevitch                              dmsilev@athena.mit.edu
Massachusetts Institute of Technology