From: rdd@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (Robert Dorsett)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Ideas on how to split rec.aviation
Date: 22 Jul 1992 15:35:54 -0500
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu


Here are some thoughts on how to reconcile the "flying" groups in the
rec.aviation proposal.  This is guided, to some degree, by the survey, which 
shows a distinct preference for "soaring," and a more or less even 
distribution among the other flying groups.  The problem is that in providing
a wide variety of "flying" options through the survey, we've also provided 
the opportunity for basic levels of group-conflict.

To make a (very) long story short, I advocate the following as the core 
rec.aviation groups (and possibly the only groups):

    rec.aviation.misc
    rec.aviation.soaring
    rec.aviation.powered
    rec.aviation.powered.ifr


Now, my rationale:

Currently, there are the following possibilities:
    IFR
    VFR
    Piloting/Flying
    Powered
    Soaring
    Regs

I think that "soaring" is a given, as a distinct type.  That leaves:
    IFR
    VFR
    Piloting
    Powered
    Regs
    
    
Now, some random thoughts:

If we push soaring, then piloting doesn't really make any sense. 
Soarers are pilots, no?  A "piloting" or "flying" group, in opposition
to soaring, might leave some bad feelings, and could be confusing.  We
know that there's a high degree of awareness of "soarer rights" among
sympathetic non-soaring pilots; for some reason, there's a perception
that powered pilots view soaring pilots as second-class citizens (which
I don't understand AT ALL, btw).  These people may be counted on to vote
against a group which they view as "discriminatory" against soarers.

Another problem is that if both soaring and a flying group is created,
if soaring turns out to be a low-volume group, some users may grow to
conclude it deals with soaring-hardware or somesuch.  In addition,
those with "soaring == gliders" mindsets might put ballooning or
hang-gliding discussions in a flying/piloting group (I, for instance,
view ballooning as more "floating" than "soaring"; soaring has the
implication of speed and height :-)).  

So a "powered" group would seem to make more sense.  It tells hang-
gliders/ballooners that is not an appropriate place for them, and a 
soaring group would tend to look like a more attractive home for *all*
unpowered discussions.  Which leaves us with:
    IFR
    VFR
    Regs

Both IFR and VFR have distinct regulatory connotations (Instrument
Flight REGULATIONS, Visual Flight REGULATIONS); a separate
"regulations" group, in  this context, is not desirable.  A regulatory
group *would*  provide a place  for people only interested in
currency/regulations to view  discussions, but  a central question is
whether it would be *so* difficult/inconvenient for  people to just
pick  out such discussions from another topical group.  Another issue
is that  individuals interested in just one *type* of regulatory
activity, say, IFR,  or homebuilding, might not appreciate having to
wade through zillions of certification-type/logbook-endorsement/first-solo 
questions from the "student" or "training" groups.  

In addition, groups like IFR would tend to be almost *exclusively* reg or 
environment-discussions; ditto with a training-group.  These would lead to
excessive cross-posting and a sense of "forum-confusion," i.e., people not
really aware of where to post a message.  

The cross-posting issue is important.  There are 100,000 nodes on the HP 
network, for instance, a lot of HP pilots, and a lot of HP pilots reading 
news with a "dumb" newsreader that can't reconcile cross-posted messages.  
Many of these pilots will oppose any group-configuration that leads to 
excessive cross-posting.  I believe this may be a significant minority, which 
can swing a borderline re-organization vote.

So, I think that regs should be dropped.  This leaves us with 
    IFR 
    VFR
    
An individual recently suggested that VFR is just a subset of IFR, and
that the two groups should be merged, since all VFR pilots aspire to be
IFR pilots. I think this is a very narrow interpretation.  IFR flight
is a *specialty*, potentially high-volume, and is not necessarily of
interest to VFR pilots (if you're not training for it or flying it,
reading about it can get awfully  tiresome).

So, we should create IFR as a distinct group.  This leaves us with 
    VFR

I don't think that "VFR" by itself needs a group.  It will very likely be
more *management* related traffic, than regulatory-type traffic; and this
could be handled by *.powered.  In addition, all soaring traffic is vfr
in nature, so there's yet another potential zone of confusion.

Therefore, I suggest:

    rec.aviation.soaring
    rec.aviation.powered
    rec.aviation.powered.ifr

This is a strong basis for an intuitive "first cut" at re-organization, and
provides a *hierarchical* foundation for further evolution of the group.



IMHO, when Geoff proposes the final CFV, if he continues with his Group I/
Group II differentiation,
    rec.aviation.misc
    rec.aviation.soaring
    rec.aviation.powered
    rec.aviation.powered.ifr
should be THE CORE, hilighted, put on a pedestal, must-pass groups. 
Everything else should be secondary, "miscellaneous" in nature, and, in
general, adaptable to the "miscellaneous" newsgroup.  This approach
would let us pretty clearly differentiate the pilot groups from the
more abstract discussion-groups, and let us examine traffic to see
whether the many possible "miscellaneous" sub-topics really warrant
traffic.  Currently, "piloting" discussions comprise about half of
rec.aviation's traffic; this would at the very least drop the 
"main-group" traffic down to 20-25 posts per day, and a principal
objective of the re-organization would be achieved.


I believe there is a SIGNIFICANT danger of a non-aviation back-lash, if a
zillion-group proposal goes to the vote.  Some mechanism should be set
up to show the ones we're *really* serious about, vs. those which could
be absorbed by .misc.





--
Robert Dorsett
Internet: rdd@rascal.ics.utexas.edu
UUCP: ...cs.utexas.edu!rascal.ics.utexas.edu!rdd