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I'd like to kick off a discussion about the current state of the newsgroup
structure here -- missing groups, unnecessary, groups, annoyingly or
confusingly named groups, etc.
The goal of this discussion is to come away with a list of practical
improvements. Ideally, any changes would also make it easier to explain
things in the TOS/T&C, and even better, would alleviate need for certain
things to be explained in the first place (because they'd hopefully be so
obvious).
The most important things for discussion here are the .market, .loc, and
org area, so I'll start with the less important stuff and come back to
those.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
First, I really think we need a .rant group somewhere. There's a lot of
ranting/kvetching that goes on (naturally), and it isn't exactly "welcomed"
in any group. Not to imply that I'm exactly in favor of _encouraging_
rants, but I know what it can be like to post a rant in a more or less
positive group and have it met with oh-don't-be-a-party-pooper and that sort
of thing. I've had it happen to me, and I've seen it happen to others too
many times for comfort.
We need a place where rants _aren't_ frowned upon -- where ranting is
expected -- but not necessarily goaded-on. The question in my mind is what
to name it and where to put it.
I'd especially love to see a _pair_ of groups -- .rant and .rave -- the
former being for letting off steam and the latter being for posting praise.
And you wouldn't be allowed to post praise in .rant or to post a rant in
rave :)
We really don't have any kind of rave-oriented group, which really can make
it seem lately (with all the 2000/2001 disappointments) that LEGO just
doesn't get any nice things said to or about it anymore. lugnet.dear-lego
isn't quite the place since it's not really a discussion group (it's for
open letters) and it covers the full spectrum from the ugly to the pretty.
A .rave group would pretty much have as its charter that it's for saying
rosy, enthusiastic things only. I like what Merriam Webster has as its
second definition of rave as noun: "an extravagantly favorable criticism."
Next, I wonder if there should be a lugnet.debate group (meaning for LEGO-
related debates). It irks me to no end to see LEGO-related discussions
(such as whether or not Bionicle is violence) occurring in lugnet.off-topic
.debate, which is specifically for non-LEGO topics. It seems that people
drift there naturally for some reason when they feel they're getting into a
debate, and that's bad. I'd rather such a debate took place in lugnet
.technic.bionicle where it's already 100% on-topic, but I guess someone
moved it out of that group at some point (why?). Anyway, if we had a
lugnet.debate group, I certainly would think that LEGO-related debates would
drift there instead.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
What should we do about the mess that's caused by having .market.auction
separate from .market.buy-sell-trade and more recently the mess that's
caused by a lack of clarity in the T&C (Discussion Group Terms & Conditions)
regarding flogs in themed groups?
When these LUGNET newsgroups were formed, eBay was still a relatively small
thing, and also at the time, RTL was still frequented mainly by people who
wanted to talk about LEGO rather than sell it. Going back even further to
1994, online LEGO auctions were still frowned upon by many, and in 1993
weren't even heard of yet. Over the past 6-7 years, due mainly I suppose
to eBay, auctions have become a normal part of life, a normal way of
selling, and eBay is now a household word. Also, the people I remember from
the early days of RTL who were staunchly against auctions seem to have all
but disappeared from the AFOL scene. Many who accepted them begrudgingly
are still around.
I don't think it can still be true that auctions are frowned upon in the
same way that they once were, and I'm challenging the notion that they
necessarily need to be separated from straight sales.
We know that it causes problems to try to separate auctions from straight
sales -- for one, because of the difficulty of agreeing on common language
and, for two, because the line is actually rather blurry when you get down
and look at it, as many of us have had the opportunity to do over the past
30 months here.
There was a thread a couple months ago about possibly reorganizing the
.market area. I really was serious about that and feel we need to attack
this again. My current thoughts are along the lines of blowing away the
two groups .market.auction and .market.buy-sell-trade, and creating in
their place the three groups .market.forsale, .market.wanted, and
.market.swap.
I'd also like to modify the Terms of Use Agreement (specifically in the
Discussion Group Terms and Conditions area) to be much more clear on flogs.
If we can rearrange the .market area so as to render the issue of "what is
and is not an auction?" a moot issue, all we have to do is define "what is
and is not a flog?" and define where it is and isn't appropriate.
We also need to make sure that casual everyday person-to-person or
person-to-group talk of a commercial nature is still OK in the .loc groups,
as appropriate, but make sure that explicit flogs are not-OK in other
groups, especially themed groups.
An example of an OK flog in a .loc group is like, "Hey, I found a bunch of
stuff on clearance at TRU at such-and-such location and I bought it all and
is there anyone in the area who wants any of it?" An example of a not-OK
flog in a .loc group is something that doesn't apply specifically to the
local area in question -- say, if someone from the U.S. posts an flog about
their worldwide auction to a group in (for example) the .loc.au or .loc.uk
area.
It could get tricky to allow auction flogs in .loc groups, as the U.S. is so
big that someone in the U.S. could post about their U.S.-only auction to
loc.us, and that would certainly annoy a lot of people. So we'll have to
draw some lines...and that won't be easy unless they are all simple lines.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Finally, it's clear that the extreme depth of the .loc hierarchy -- that
is, going all the way down to cities -- just isn't an attractive thing
across the board. It has worked out very well in .us because of its sheer
size and the number of people online, but it fails miserably in, for
example, .au, .br, .de, .es, .fi, .fr, .it, .nl, .no, .nz, .se, and (last,
but not least!), .uk.
Sometime in 1999, at the request of the .loc.uk populace, we actually shut
down some 85 subgroups of .loc.uk, leaving .loc.uk and 6 subgroups .ci, .en,
.im, .ni, .sc, and .wl, which themselves even haven't been adopted much yet.
So, I'd like to whack ALL of the subgroups of ALL of the countries except
for .loc.us (which enjoys relatively heavy use) and what remains of .loc.uk
(or maybe even those too).
This could mean deleting as many as 387 newsgroups.
I'm rather dismayed as to how few AFOLs have come online outside of the
U.S. since 1998. It's been a lot, to be sure, but I really expected 10
times as many. I really expected there to be a few hundred in the UK by
now, for example. That's why the huge up-front planning of all the .loc
groups down to the major metropolitan regions. Anyway, those guesses were
totally wrong, and people seem to want to group up in bigger groups anyway.
Apart from the simple practical gains (fewer groups means simpler
subscriptions) if we proceeded with this, we would also be able to handle
ad-hoc expansion of .loc areas nicely. What I mean by this is having
subgroups of .loc areas be for topics in a specific native language. I
seem to remember that someone in .loc.it once asked for a .robotics
subgroup where they could talk about robotics in Italian, but I complained
that the .loc area is for localities and not for topical divisions. If we
changed this rule and let each country define its own subgroups, free from
regional distinctions, I think it would be a lot healthier for those local
communities.
Closely related to this is the question of what to do when a country wants
its own market group? I don't particularly like the idea of creating
subgroups in the .market area because they'd be so prone to trigger-happy
crossposting, and I don't (or rather, didn't) like the idea of creating
market subgroups in the .loc area because of disrupting the original nature
of the .loc area, but...if that restriction was relaxed and each .loc.xx
area could request specific subgroups, then I can't argue with that since
it has the best chance of giving people what they really want and need.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Somewhat related to lugnet.loc reorganization is the possibility of
lugnet.org reorganization. Long ago, for some reason, I created an .org
subgroup of lugnet.trains. I think this may have been before the
lugnet.org hierarchy, and it definitely was before all of the other theme
groups (lugnet.trains and lugnet.starwars were the only theme groups at the
time...imagine that!).
Anyway, that stuck, and eventually there was also a lugnet.castle.org group
and lugnet.castle.org.cw group for Castle World.
What I'd like to open up for discussion is whether or not anything "org"
related should be moved under lugnet.org sooner rather than later, or not
at all. That is, should lugnet.trains.org be moved to lugnet.org.train (or
for that matter lugnet.org.ltc)?
As we get more an more new types of organizations popping up (we currently
have four types, I think -- a bunch train, one castle, one town, and one
CAD), the more and more they'll become fragmented across the newsgroup
structure.
I could live with relaxing the original restriction of lugnet.org.xx being
countries only and say that the xx is either a two-letter country code or
some other longer prefix like train or castle or cad. I have the
capability to divide the display of subgroups into horizontal "tiers" so
that location-based organizations could show up in a separate tier from
topical-based organizations. (An example of tiers is on the Robotics entry
page or on the main news homepage.)
One possible "compartmentalized dork" type of nightmare here is what might
happen if some country wanted to place their LUGs inside of the .loc.xx
hierarchy instead of the .org.xx hierarchy. I guess we'd have to spell
that out in the rules for requesting groups. And that makes me kinda
wonder if it was shortsighted to have created the .org area in the first
place. That is, if there were no .org area, LUGs would naturally fall into
the .loc area, if they could.
Well, food for thought. I'd like to get all of this resolved within the
next couple of weeks. But if there's a lot of good discussion and new
issues, we could do some of it sooner and some of it later. But no loose
ends here past the end of March -- that's a hard deadline.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
So, speak your opinions on these:
* Add new group lugnet.rant or lugnet.lego.rant? Why or why not?
* Add new group lugnet.rave or lugnet.lego.rave? Why or why not?
* Add new group lugnet.debate? Why or why not?
* Delete lugnet.market.auction and lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade and replace
these with lugnet.market.forsale, lugnet.market.wanted, and lugnet.market
.swap? Why or why not?
* How much and what type of flogging would you like to see in .loc groups?
None? Some? Anything goes? Only certain types? Why or why not?
* Axe regional subgroups of lugnet.loc.xx and field requests for new
subgroups on a country-by-country basis -- let them grow organically?
Why or why not?
* Move lugnet.trains.org to lugnet.org.train/ltc/etc., and move
lugnet.castle.org to lugnet.org.castle, and move lugnet.cad.dev.org.ldraw
to lugnet.org.cad.ldraw (or something)? Why or why not?
I *especially* would like to hear your opinions if you haven't weighed in on
any of these issues before.
Thanks,
--Todd
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Message has 32 Replies:
 | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
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| (...) Thanks Todd for giving us the opputunity to have input into this. I think .Rant is a good idea but would want people to be able to include probelms with specific sellers/buyers in .Marketplace so that the whole Marketplace community are aware (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| * Delete lugnet.market.auction and lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade and replace these with lugnet.market.forsale, lugnet.market.wanted, and lugnet.market .swap? Why or why not? If you listed some sets you have for sale, and then put "willing to sell or (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| Todd: (...) Why not. (...) Probably a good idea. Your arguments for it make sense. (...) I don't really read the market groups, but if it makes it easier to get people to keep market posts in the market groups, them I am all for the change. (...) I (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| (...) I would recommend 1 new group: lugnet.lego.rant/rave since I think they are best given the same weight and mostly because I fear people saying "compare the number of posts in rant v. rave and see how much Lego stinks now." We know that people (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| (...) You have to realize that the language barrier can refrain many from joining lugnet in the first place - if you don't know there are any local groups, which you can understand, you don't search for them through the main site in a language you (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
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| (...) I like the idea for all of these although I can see quite a bit of crossposting between .debate and the other 2. Maybe these groups should have restricted cross-posting? I.E. No cross posting at all or the only crossposting would be allowed if (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
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| In lugnet.admin.nntp, Todd Lehman writes: <snip a whole bunch of thoughtful stuff that needs thinking about> One question now, more later. For groups being sunsetted is it uniformly an "archive it and start over" approach, or are there some groups (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| Todd Lehman wrote in message <3aa34df1.136496190@...et.com>... (...) I wish you would expand sale to two groups, Ebay and Non-Ebay. (...) How about having a definition that would exclude "for profit" posts. This way if you found a local sale or (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
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| OK, I'm posting before reading most of the other replies... (...) Thanks for getting us involved, like Alison said. <skip to the end> (...) lugnet.rant and lugnet.rave, yes. A good place to voice opinions that would potentially annoy other people, (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| (...) I like the idea already expressed for .rant/rave combined. (...) I agree with your reasoning on this one. It's a good idea. (...) This is the area I visit the most (after Castle). Your suggested change is very good -- it mimics how I think (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| (...) I'm for both of these groups (ie, lugnet.rant and lugnet.rave). I think that your reasons for wanting them are valid. (...) Hmm. I'll be honest- I would rather see debates about Bionicle take place in the Bionicle newsgroup, than a general (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| (...) Sure. They can't hurt, and adding them gives you the coverage you need to toast the mostly obsolete dear-lego group. I'd suggest having them as just .rant and .rave instead of under the .lego.* hierarchy, to avoid implications that they're (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| Todd Lehman wrote in message <3aa34df1.136496190@...et.com>... (...) Some of the CN groups have reasonable amounts of activity too, and I wouldn't want to see them go away. Vancouver would have more except that a lot of the local discussion happens (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| (...) flogs. (...) OK, this isn't an answer to one of your specific questions, but I will comment about these ideas anyway. I see no need to separate .forsale from .swap. Everything I have forsale is also available for swap and vice versa. Actually, (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| (...) I agree with the comment that it shouldn't be under .lego. Otherwise, this sounds like a good way to deal with the type of comments you describe. (...) Ditto my comments about .rant. Plus, I'd recomend a name change. The term rave has certain (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| (...) Ok, Could you add a TOS/T&C comment regarding April Fool's and other speculative type postings.. I know that on the posting page it clearly states that you agree not to submit " false,fradulent,incomplete or decpetive information.". However, I (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| Ok, some initial thoughts.... I was opposed to a .rant type group earlier, I now see that it could be valuable. One question though is how to get the ranting to move there. I don't think we can eliminate initial rants in response to an announcement, (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| (...) Yes, please. I would love to see this move out of the usual theme areas. I have no opinion on whether it belongs under .lego or not. (...) I like this idea. I was thinking about posting some sort of rave this morning. I am concerned, however, (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| Todd Lehman <lehman@javanet.com> wrote in message news:3aa34df1.136496...net.com... (...) Hmmm. I tend to think it's generally a good idea, but are people gonna use it? I think you're still gonna get general Lego ranting & raving in .general, but (...) (23 years ago, 5-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| In lugnet.admin.nntp, Todd Lehman writes: snip ... (...) Lets clear up what is allowed. I think posting that you have parts for a theme up for sale should not be allowed. Parts are whatever you make of them, most parts can be any theme you want, (...) (23 years ago, 6-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
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| (...) My personal view/wish: I think the whole .bst/.auction area should be replaced with theme-specific market groups. Little advertised fact: not everyone on LUGNET is a generalist! I do not read .bst or .auction despite knowing that I'll be (...) (23 years ago, 6-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
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| (...) I have mixed feelings about trying to apply order in matters of speech. I appreciate trying to make things orderly, and by segregating posts to areas they would be sought in would avoid flames from people who have to wade through messages (...) (23 years ago, 6-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
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| There are entirely too many groups now. If you condense the .loc groups there are still too many groups. Condense the top level groups as much as possible (1), eleminate most of the subgroups. Combine some of the theme groups. I appreciate that the (...) (23 years ago, 6-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| Interesting ideas. I look forward to the changes coming to Lugnet. Being serious, I think the Rant newsgroup should be .racers. Or something else that clearly implies the rant and upset-at-Lego sentiments immediately. Just a suggestion that likely (...) (23 years ago, 6-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| (...) Wow. Well thanx for starting this discussion up Todd. It focuses into one thread what a lot of people have been talking about on and off for some time. I've read all the posts that are available and found about 15 that had a point in it that I (...) (23 years ago, 6-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| Hello Todd, hello everybody, (...) Go ahead and do that. In the case of Germany, I have wondered from the very beginning, how we three or so online AFOLs in the Stuttgart area should fill a newsgroup. Traffic in the loc.de newsgroup is currently (...) (23 years ago, 6-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
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| (...) I'm not sure it would be a good idea to add either of these groups. On the surface it seems great...but I see a potential let-down. When I read discussions in Lugnet, it seems to me that positive and negative conversations add to the (...) (23 years ago, 6-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| <snip> (...) praise. (...) Go ahead you've got my vote on both. <snip> (...) Perfect, I'd subscribe to it in a New York minute! <snip> There was a thread a couple months ago about possibly reorganizing the (...) Actually I think that doing this (...) (23 years ago, 6-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
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| (...) definitely add these three if for no other reason than to give us somewhere to boot people who keep posting this cr*p in our other ng's (...) well, i like monitoring only one ng, buy-sell-trade, but even if split up (which it really should) it (...) (23 years ago, 8-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
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| (...) Sorry I've got no real opinion on this... (...) I'd rather have things stay the same, and move anything that is not a *straight* sale /trade to .auction (stricter rules for the .b-s-t group) Perhaps make additional group(s) for places as ebay (...) (23 years ago, 8-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
| | | Re: Newsgroup structure: some tough decisions
|
| I'm a little late coming on this discussion topic but I thought I'd add my thoughts anyhow. I'd be interested in your current thoughts on this issue Todd, after reading so many responses.....not that I doubt you'll keep us all well aware of your (...) (23 years ago, 10-Mar-01, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
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