Subject:
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Re: new newsgroup lugnet.inst
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.nntp
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Date:
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Tue, 30 Jul 2002 19:03:03 GMT
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Viewed:
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1781 times
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In lugnet.admin.nntp, William R. Ward writes:
> Ugh, I really don't think this is a very intuitive name. Why not
> lugnet.instructions?
Good question.
Ok, why lugnet.build.arch on LUGNET? Why not lugnet.building.architecture?
Why comp.arch.storage on USENET? Why not computers.architecture.storage?
Well, in choosing newsgroup names, there's a long tradition (going back 20+
years on USENET (comp=>computers, lang=>language, rec=>recreation, etc.) and
4 years here on LUGNET) that the names be brief, for a number of reasons.
As you point out below, at least one of those reasons is less important
nowadays than it once was, but the overall length of a newsgroup name is
still a pertinent issue, especially considering subgroup expansion, and hence
the tradition. It's a rule of thumb, not a hard rule.
> I doubt anybody is using a newsreader that's so
> old you have to actually type the names of the newsgroups.
Even in the Followup-To header? :-) Or crossposting?
> There are *soo* many words that either start with or can reasonably be
> abbreviated "inst"...
I did a search the other day and was surprised to find that the biggie root
words seemed to be only four: install, institute, instruct, and instrument.
I'm sure it's possible to find similar fault with the following abbreviations,
but they work in practice:
lugnet.build.arch
lugnet.cad.dev
lugnet.db.inv
lugnet.edu
lugnet.org
lugnet.robotics.tele
An exception to the general shorten-as-much-as-reasonably-possible rule of
thumb is something like lugnet.publish.photography. That didn't get shortened
to lugnet.publish.photo because we wanted it to be clear that it's about the
art/craft/techniques of photography and not a binary group to post photos in
(although it's certainly fine to post a link to a photo and discuss its
technical/artistic merits).
--Todd
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Re: new newsgroup lugnet.inst
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| (...) Ugh, I really don't think this is a very intuitive name. Why not lugnet.instructions? I doubt anybody is using a newsreader that's so old you have to actually type the names of the newsgroups. There are *soo* many words that either start with (...) (22 years ago, 30-Jul-02, to lugnet.admin.nntp)
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