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In lugnet.cad.dev, jsproat@geocities.com (Sproaticus) writes:
> > [...] I really like the thought of a special group
> > lugnet.trains.org for people to help plan and talk about how to set
> > up more clubs like PNLTC and GMLTC. This is forward-expandable to
> > lugnet.trains.org.pnltc and lugnet.trains.org.gmltc if those clubs
> > ever decided that they wanted discussion areas or mailing lists.
>
> Why the .org. then?
Well, at the risk of sounding like I'm repeating myself, I really like the
thought of a special group lugnet.trains.org for people to help plan and
talk about how to set up more clubs like PNLTC and GMLTC. The .org. node
is forward-expandable to lugnet.trains.org.pnltc and lugnet.trains.org
.gmltc if those clubs ever decided that they wanted discussion areas or
mailing lists.
But of course the train folks would have to like it too in order for it
really to make sense.
> Why not lugnet.trains.pnltc and lugnet.trains.gmltc ?
> The name is shorter and easier to remember. They are separated from the
> lugnet.trains group, yet they're still associated with it.
I think those would be awesome ng names, as would just about any club with
an acronym-based name ending in LTC.
But...
What happens when a club pops up with an artsy name like, hmm, "9V"? Or
something whimsical like "Rail Runners"? Or a train club in Cocoa Beach,
Florida called "Cocoa Loco"?
Without .org.:
lugnet.trains.9v Trains / 9V
lugnet.trains.railrunners Trains / Rail Runners
lugnet.trains.cocoa-loco Trains / Cocoa Loco
With .org.:
lugnet.trains.org.9v Trains / Organizations / 9V
lugnet.trains.org.railrunners Trains / Organizations / Rail Runners
lugnet.trains.org.cocoa-loco Trains / Organizations / Cocoa Loco
[BTW, .pnltc and .gmltc were given as examples for the sake of working out
an orthogonal plan/structure; I don't think either group is really looking
for a public discussion area at this point.]
> > So -- are there any objections to this ng name--?
> > lugnet.cad.org.ldraw
>
> Yes, see my objection to .org. above.
>
> > This would have one associated web page,
> > http://www.lugnet.com/cad/org/ldraw/
> > Which would contain a link to www.ldraw.org and contain the web
> > interface to the newsgroup articles for the group, and the hierarchy
> > labels at the top of the page would read:
> > CAD / Organizations / LDraw /
>
> A very good point in favor of keeping the .org. level. Hmmm, it seems to me
> to be a tradeoff between fewer keystrokes and ease of recall, and a more
> discrete organization. Tough call.
>
> ...Which is why I don't manage portal sites! :-,
More questions and food for thought:
How are new-users and wanderers-by likely to imagine the purpose of a
newsgroup named lugnet.cad.ldraw versus a newsgroup named
lugnet.cad.org.ldraw?
Does the newsgroup name lugnet.cad.ldraw "repel" general LDraw discussions
(questions, problems, modeling discussions, tips, etc.) or does it attract
them? How does the answer to that compare with the purpose and objectives
of the new newsgroup?
To what degree has the .dev suffix of lugnet.cad succeeded or failed in
repelling general LDraw discussions?
What percentage (roughly) of all LEGO-related CAD activity on the Internet
is based on or associated with LDraw? Does "CAD" in the context of LEGO
generally mean "LDraw" to people (speaking in terms of what pops first into
mind)? How likely are other non-LDRAW-based systems to reach the same
critical mass which LDraw has reached?
When we say .cad.dev, what does the "development" in .dev mean? Development
of any CAD system for LEGO toys? Or development of LDraw parts and tools?
(Note: I don't mean by definition; I mean by practice: what spheres of
development take place in the .dev group >80% of the time?)
If there were, say, 4 or 5 major LEGO-style CAD packages (major as in
critical mass and installed base), where would .ldraw belong in the .cad
hierarchy -- higher or lower?
When the lugnet news system was founded last fall, the charter for the
lugnet.cad group was given as: "CAD software/models/animations, LDraw,
LeoCAD, L3G0, L2P, L3P, BlockCAD, etc." In other words, LDraw was shown
prominently but not dominantly. In practice today, how much of the activity
across the entire .cad hierarchy is not LDRAW-based or LDraw-related?
In a perfect world, if you could wipe out the whole lugnet.cad.* newsgroup
hierarchy and start from scratch with a new lugnet.cad.* hierarchy, what
might that look like?
How natural is something like this?-- (Just for the sake of discussion;
*not* proposing this)
lugnet.cad CAD
lugnet.cad.dat.ideas CAD / DAT Files / Ideas
lugnet.cad.dat.models CAD / DAT Files / Models
lugnet.cad.dat.parts CAD / DAT Files / Parts
lugnet.cad.dat.parts.prim CAD / DAT Files / Parts / Primitives
lugnet.cad.dat.scenes CAD / DAT Files / Scenes
lugnet.cad.sw.blockcad CAD / Software / BlockCAD
lugnet.cad.sw.l3g0 CAD / Software / L3G0
lugnet.cad.sw.ldraw CAD / Software / LDraw
lugnet.cad.sw.ldraw.dev CAD / Software / LDraw / Development
lugnet.cad.sw.ldraw.org CAD / Software / LDraw / ldraw.org
lugnet.cad.sw.legocad CAD / Software / LEGO CAD
lugnet.cad.sw.leocad CAD / Software / LeoCAD
At first glance, it seems rather logical. But I think there are some really
yucky problems with it. First, the .dat hierarchy arguably didn't belong
under the .ldraw hierarchy because, even though DAT files originated with
LDraw, other unrelated systems (LeoCAD, BlockCAD, etc.) can work with DAT
files. Second, since the .dev group is oriented heavily toward LDraw parts
and related tools, it probably belongs in the .ldraw hierarchy. But having
it so far away from the .dat hierarchy is unfortunate too. Third, the
juxtaposition of .org and .dev are very confusing given that www.ldraw.org
exists and www.ldraw.dev does not. Fourth, the .sw layer was included so
that things didn't appear both above & below the .dat layer; the .sw layer
is both pretty and ugly.
Here is, all things considered, maybe what'll work best:
lugnet.cad CAD
lugnet.cad.dat.ideas CAD / DAT Files / Ideas
lugnet.cad.dat.models CAD / DAT Files / Models
lugnet.cad.dat.parts CAD / DAT Files / Parts
lugnet.cad.dat.parts.prim CAD / DAT Files / Parts / Primitives
lugnet.cad.dat.scenes CAD / DAT Files / Scenes
lugnet.cad.dev CAD / Development
lugnet.cad.dev.org CAD / Development / ldraw.org
n/a CAD / LDraw
n/a CAD / LDraw / Parts
n/a CAD / LDraw / Tools
n/a CAD / Ray-Tracing
The last four are newsgroupless categories purely for organizing links on
the website. I'm sure at some point there would also be virtual categories
for other software packages as they gain popularity and users and have more
things to link to like galleries and stuff like that.
Anyway, in this final scenario, .cad.dev.org is the new group, tucked away
under the protection of .cad.dev. And this also makes semantic sense as the
new group is a spinoff of .cad.dev and will have many of the same
participants, although a smaller set. In this scenario, .cad.dev would
continue to be for development of CAD stuff (primarily LDraw) and
.cad.dev.org would be for development of ldraw.org specific stuff (primarily
the website).
Whew. OK. Well, I don't love this last scenario to death or anything but
it seems practical. Comments/opinions/criticisms?
--Todd
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Message has 3 Replies:
 | | Re: newsgroup name for ldraw.org
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| (...) Yes, okay. A point you made in an earlier post is that lugnet.org and lugnet.com are potentially confusing to the starting user. Perhaps if you used .club. instead of .org. ? It breaks the domain-mapping paradigm, but it's a little more (...) (25 years ago, 14-Apr-99, to lugnet.cad.dev, lugnet.admin.general)
| | | lugnet.cad hierarhcy
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| (...) (An aside -- lugnet.trains.org might become lugnet.trains.clubs -- see the discussion in lugnet.trains for more info.) (...) OK, I've got it! Figured this out after resetting my brain last night. Forget everything so far (except the local (...) (25 years ago, 14-Apr-99, to lugnet.cad.dev, lugnet.admin.general)
| | | Re: lugnet.cad hierarhcy
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| At 09:01 PM 4/14/99 +0000, Todd Lehman wrote: [...] (...) Seems like the best choice for me. It spawned off of cad.dev, and CAD / LDraw / ldraw.org would be a little redundant, but not too much. I don't mind it being cad.ld.ldraw-org or cad.ld.org (...) (25 years ago, 14-Apr-99, to lugnet.cad.dev, lugnet.admin.general)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: newsgroup name for ldraw.org
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| (...) Arg. Good point. (...) Why the .org. then? Why not lugnet.trains.pnltc and lugnet.trains.gmltc ? The name is shorter and easier to remember. They are separated from the lugnet.trains group, yet they're still associated with it. (...) Yes, see (...) (25 years ago, 14-Apr-99, to lugnet.cad.dev)
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