From: ARNE@kopc.hhs.dk (Arne Vajhxj)
Newsgroups: comp.os.vms
Subject: how to increase the quality of postings on INFO-VAX
Date: 20 Jan 93 13:53:27 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet


There has recently been some suggestions about how we could increase the
quality of postings to INFO-VAX/COMP.OS.VMS !

1)  Split the list in "INFO-VAX-COMMON" and "INFO-VAX-WIZARD".

    I do not think that idea will improve things. The people, which
    will post to "INFO-VAX-COMMON" will likely be the people, which today
    posts relative good questions with most of the relevant facts, because
    they have thougth a little over the problem. The people, which will
    post to "INFO-VAX-WIZARD" will be the one posting incomplete
    questions, because they do not spend time analyzing their problem.
    The result would be bizarre ! (and this is serious - we all know that
    nobody wants to be looked at as a wizard as much as a beginner)

2)  Start a new moderated list.

    It will solve the problem, but also create some new ones: There will
    be one more list to subscribe to and a lot of cross-postings. It will
    be an enourmous task to moderate such a group - Carl may be willing
    for the momement, but what about next year and the next again. There
    will be a significant time delay (I assume the moderator do not want to
    be on duty 24 hours/day 7 days/week !). The number of very poor
    postings are relative small (5-10%), so the benefit will be small of
    only avoiding those, but avoiding all not-extremely-good postings (50-75%)
    will impose a rather unpleasent censor-ship, which I personally consider
    unacceptable. The costs outweigh the benefits !

3)  Send out a "How-to-post"-guide every week.

    Carl and Ehud are working on a "How-to-post"-guide, which I assume will
    be good, IF they keep their head cool and forget all their aggressions.
    One of the monthly INFO-VAX postings already have such a section, but it
    is several hundred lines down in a large posting and could probably
    have been written better (it is small). So I will suggest, that
    Carl and Ehuds "How-to-post"-guide will join the monthly INFO-VAX
    postings as an independent posting (or maybe after all the not so nice
    words have been exchanged with some more polite :-) ). 

    But is weekly not better than monthly? No - I do not think so. Here we
    must seperate between the mailing-list INFO-VAX and the news-group
    COMP.OS.VMS ! At INFO-VAX I do think that monthly is enough ! At
    COMP.OS.VMS daily would probably be necesarry to catch all the users,
    which suddenly one day discovers the NEWS command ! I will not suggest
    a daily posting, but instead suggest that the system-managers at 
    sites with COMP.OS.VMS maybe did "inform" their users a little about
    the fact that posting a question to COMP.OS.VMS actually means that
    50000 people (so the monthly posting says) will have to read it and
    maybe they should read at least a month before starting to post !

There can be done a few things to improve the way this list work, but it
will NEVER be perfect. So if you see a posting with a stupid question,
then hit the next-key and think at spring and pretty girls !

                                                                 ARNE

Arne Vajhxj                             local DECNET:  KO::ARNE
Computer Department                     PSI:           PSI%23831001304030::ARNE
Business School of Southern Denmark     Internet:      ARNE@KO.HHS.DK