Re: [MacPerl] We're all Macperlers on this bus...

[Mark Manning/Simulacron I <markem@flash.net>]

I've read this thread a while and believe the list is good the way it is
but I would not oppose broadening the scope of the list so long as the
new range isn't so large that we loose sight of the list's original
intent.  That is to say - I don't mind so long as we don't go overboard.

On the c.l.p.m list thing -

First, this really doesn't have anything to do with MacPerl and these
thoughts should really go in the news group itself.

Second, what the problem is with the current set of newsgroup software
managers is that they were never intended to help anyone.  They were
only intended to convey messages as a bulletin board does.  But what is
really needed is a help desk person sitting in front of the bulletin
board.  Or to put that in software terms - we need a simple A.I. program
for the newsgroup software which keeps an index of what messages were
posted which correlate to the question asked.  If there were such a
beast then frequently asked questions would never get posted.  Instead,
it would direct the person to the various messages which matched the
content of their message.

For example:

Let's say you have a question about sockets.  Like how to open one on
the Mac.

Ok, the program would look through it's index for anything which matched
all of the words in your message.  Terms such as "the", "a", and the
like would get thrown out because they would occur in every message. 
But words like "socket", "connection", "open", and the like would return
a hit on only a certain number of messages.  Sort of like this:

	WORD		COUNT
	-----		----------
	the		500,000
	a		2,345,000
	socket		8,323
	open		4,247
	connection	1,369

(Of course this is a fairly large number of hits but with a cross
correlation of the message numbers would probably gain you only twenty
to thirty former posts which deal with "socket", "open", and
"connection" in the same message.)

Anyway, the outcome would be that an e-mail message would be sent back
to the person letting them know about the previous messages which they
could then read upon request.

	.	.	.

Ok.  Before anyone boo-hoos the above - remember that all of the
messages which have been posted to a given group are archived
somewhere.  Such as for comp.graphics.algorithms (which has over three
years worth of messages compressed on their site.  So each site does not
have to maintain a complete set of messages.  Only the main site which
keeps the archives.  Each site only has to keep a dictionary database
(or the database could be set up at the archive site and everyone just
references it).  The user's message is not posted until the archive has
been searched, e-mail sent to the user letting them know about the
messages, and the user responding back saying that they want their
message posted.

It is a simple system (although it does slow things down a bit on the
posting part) and could be made to work.  I've not made a working
version of a newsgroup posting program but I did make a quick-n-dirty
program which would search the comp.graphics.algorithms archived
messages for a given topic.  Basically, I was looking for anything to do
with GIF files. So I made a small program to download the file with the
subject lines in it and then search through it for various words.

So basically, I'm extrapolating that if I can do this for locating
information about GIF files it could be done in a much broader sense for
posts on other newsgroups.  And yeah, people who can't spell would fall
through and get posted or if they used unusual posting methods (like
putting spaces between each letter) would get posted.  But they would
only get posted once or twice.  Duplicates would pretty much be
eliminated after a while.  And some people said that it cuts into the
freedom to post whenever and whereever you like.  This is not true. 
I've never advocated impeding a person's right to post.  I'm just saying
that if a question is posted once and fifty replies come back then the
next person who posts the same thing should first be directed to look at
some (if not all) of those fifty former posts _and then_ if their
question is not answereed to allow the post to go through.

Just some thoughts on this problem.  :-)


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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