Read this BEFORE you vote, please
Walter Nissen (dk058@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Thu, 28 Mar 1996 18:59:26 -0500
There are some more important cons than the ones formerly enumerated. I
am posting this item to SeeSat-L, because I don't think the cons of a
proposal should be put together by the proponents.
I add these IMPORTANT new cons:
7. The newsgroup might cannibalize the activity in SeeSat-L, resulting in
SeeSat-L becoming a weak sister to the newsgroup and forcing everyone who
feels well satisfied by SeeSat-L either to live with the deficiencies of a
newsgroup or retire from the main forum of activity.
8. Usenet is filled with a variety of forms of trash which at their most
virulent, e.g., in some of the sci.space.* and sci.astro.* newsgroups,
drive away nearly all potential readers.
9. SeeSat-L is a mom-'n-pop neighborhood operation. Usenet is a
Washington bureaucracy, or United Nations bureaucracy, or EU bureaucracy.
We are vulnerable to the loss of key support, but we don't have to live
with decisions the powerful may make for reasons that have nothing to do
with SeeSat-L or satellite observing. And we are nowhere near as likely
to draw unwanted legal or administrative attention.
10. The alleged advantage of broader discussion of satellite interests
than presently found on SeeSat-L could be a huge disadvantage. I sense
that some people want a forum for more detailed and extensive discussion
of satellite hardware and telemetry operation. I think this should go to
Hearsat-L, sci.space.policy and sci.space.tech, or to some new forum, as
appropriate. While I would gladly participate in some of this discussion,
and some of it would be at least marginally appropriate in SeeSat-L, I
greatly fear being overwhelmed by a mass of postings I will never have
time to get to.
11. I'd swear there are more I can't think of right now.
And, because some were not very specific, I substitute my own rewording
of the enumerated cons:
5. Uncertain news delivery; a few percent of all articles are never
delivered. If you don't believe this, compare the articles received at
two different sites or use AltaVista or DejaNews. I have had the
experience of surprise initial receipt of replies to my correspondence via
DejaNews months after the posting of the replies. (I welcome
quantification of this aspect).
1. Even when delivered, lags in news distribution can be up to several
days.
2. No central archive (as a part of this proposal, though someone could
step forward).
3. Newsgroup will be unavailable at some sites and to e-mail only
readers.
4. SeeSat-L vs. SeeSat-P decision has to be made with sending of every
message.
6. Name should be sci.astro.observe-sats.
I am in the modestly uncomfortable position of being one whose initial
thought has become a proposal which he does not pretend to understand. I
apologize for the untimeliness of this post, especially because it is
obvious that when I should have been doing this a week or so back, I was
still only begging for more time. I attribute to comet madness the fact
that the call for votes was posted on the very day The Great Comet of 1996
was closest to Earth.
A mailing list has the advantage of offering very timely, reliable
delivery of a relatively trash-free stream of information to people who
are interested enough to receive it as part of their daily stream of
e-mail.
A newsgroup attempts to build additional benefit based on wider outreach
to a less involved, but larger (even though it excludes the e-mail only
readers), body of interest.
As I have said on UseSat-L, I find this a murky proposition, and think it
requires further consideration rather than precipitate implementation. I
could be wrong about that.
Cheers.
Walter Nissen dk058@cleveland.freenet.edu
---
Astronomy is lights in the sky.