Newsgroups: bionet.general
Subject: Re: How will we deal with high volume newsgroups?
From: robison1@husc10.harvard.edu (Keith Robison)
Date: 24 Jul 92 13:33:11 GMT

steffen@mbcr.bcm.tmc.edu (David Steffen) writes:


>  In my mind, at least, the bionet hierarchy of newsgroups passed a
>watershed today.  Between when I went home last night and when I came
>in today, there were 22 new messages posted on
>bionet.molbio.methods-reagents; I now declare this a high volume
>group!  (During the same time frame, there were 13 messages posted to
>bionet.software.  Thus, methods-reagents is unusual but not absolutely
>unique among bionet groups in it volume.)

>  If you accept the premise that a few of the bionet groups are
>approaching high volume, then the job ahead for these groups is not the
>traditional one among *BIONET* groups of drumming up business, but the
>traditional one among *USENET* groups of handling the volume
>intelligently.  Before I give Dave Kristofferson an ulcer, I am not
>proposing anything for the short- or medium-term; in that time scale,
>I think we will all have to cope using the traditional usenet
>approaches of intelligent newsreaders and learning how to use these
>newsreaders effectively.  However, I would like to initiate a
>discussion of an idea I have for a long term solution.

>  I think a problem with the newsgroup paradyme which afflicts some of
>the most potentially useful groups (e.g.
>bionet.molbio.methods-reagents; comp.sys.mac.*; etc.) is that many
>questions are asked that could be answered by hundreds of people in
>the newsgroup, and that these relatively simple questions swamp the
>newsgroup.  Thus, people who can't stand the volume any more simply
>unsubscribe.  How big a problem is this?  If a group, such as
>methods-reagents, averages 20 messages a day, and if there is a 2 week
>expiration, then the person who logs on infrequently (common in
>biology) is confronted with 280 messages; more than most people are
>willing to wade through.  

>-- 
>David Steffen
>Department of Cell Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston TX 77030
>Telephone = (713) 798-6655, FAX = (713) 790-0545
>Internet = steffen@bcm.tmc.edu

	I believe that the way to go is better newsreaders.  The "problem"
which David S. cites is a few messages generating many replies.  As
I see it, the problem is that the newsreaders I have used (rn and nn)
treat a posting as the fundamental unit for selection and reading,
rather than a thread (message and it's replies) as the fundamental
unit.  Since in the vast majority of cases I (and I suspect most
people) either read an entire thread or ignore it completely,
such a solution would eliminate the "problem" bionet is having
(i.e. success).  
	David's posting proposes a staged net broadcasting system by
which a message would spiral out to broader and broader groups until
it was answered.  I think that many people would find this unsatisfactory
because they are using the net precisely because they wish to get 
information quickly. It might either turn people off, or lead them
to short-circuit things entirely.


Keith Robison
Harvard University
Program in Biochemistry, Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology

robison@ribo.harvard.edu