Randy Pals May 16 1994, 10:55 am show options Newsgroups: rec.games.chess From: p...@ipact.com (Randy Pals) - Find messages by this author Date: 16 May 94 12:55:54 CDT Local: Mon, May 16 1994 10:55 am Subject: rec.games.chess.ics?? Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse Over the 4-5 years that I have followed rec.games.chess, from time to time discussions about splitting the group have come up. A few that I can remember right off the top have been: 1) a computer chess vs. non-computer chess split, 2) a history vs. non-history split, and 3) a moderated vs. non-moderated split (inspired by a long flame war lit and vigorously fanned by a poster that went by the handle of DMC). The "history" split made the most sense of the three, but still found little support and didn't make it beyond the formal Request for Discussion stage. The other two were, IMHO, patently bad ideas. However, now I think there is a possible split which would make sense - a separate group for ICS technical and political issues (*only*). The reasons I believe this split would make sense are: 1. There is a clear division of interest along ICS lines. Those of us who don't have access to the ICS (or don't use it) don't care about posts relating to where the ICS has moved to today, or why it isn't working, or why it is so busy, or other technical matters like lag flagging. (In addition, we aren't crazy about having to pay for the connect time to receive them, where that applies). 2. The volume of ICS-related posts in the group is significant. Lately, the lag flagging issue represented a high percentage of the posts. Long term, that number is lower, but is still quite significant, and there seem to be regular high-volume bursts. 3. Political and technical matters about the ICS are, after all, not really related to the game of chess or even to computer chess, they are related to software which allows people to play games interactively on the Internet. Don't get me wrong, I think the ICS sounds like a great service. I wish I could use it. And those of you who can use it might not see the point in a split. But try to put yourself in the place of someone who can't use ICS and/or has to pay for every byte of rec.games.chess that comes his way ... -- Randy Pals (p...@ipact.com) | IPACT, Inc. | "Once you give up integrity, the rest is Automation System Integrators | a piece of cake." - J. R. Ewing Warren Bond Porter May 17 1994, 8:22 pm show options Newsgroups: rec.games.chess From: wbpor...@whale.st.usm.edu (Warren Bond Porter) - Find messages by this author Date: 17 May 1994 13:04:10 GMT Local: Tues, May 17 1994 6:04 am Subject: Re: rec.games.chess.ics?? Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse Randy Pals (p...@ipact.com) wrote: : Over the 4-5 years that I have followed rec.games.chess, from time to time : discussions about splitting the group have come up. A few that I can [deleted] : However, now I think there is a possible split which would make sense - a : separate group for ICS technical and political issues (*only*). The reasons I : believe this split would make sense are: : 1. There is a clear division of interest along ICS lines. Those of us who : don't have access to the ICS (or don't use it) don't care about posts : relating to where the ICS has moved to today, or why it isn't working , : 2. The volume of ICS-related posts in the group is significant. Lately, the : 3. Political and technical matters about the ICS are, after all, not really : related to the game of chess or even to computer chess, they are related : to software which allows people to play games interactively on the Internet. : Don't get me wrong, I think the ICS sounds like a great service. I wish I : could use it. And those of you who can use it might not see the point in a : split. But try to put yourself in the place of someone who can't use ICS : and/or has to pay for every byte of rec.games.chess that comes his way ... Good idea, Randy! Here's my vote of support. -- Warren Porter wbpor...@whale.st.usm.edu Joseph Albert May 18 1994, 12:44 am show options Newsgroups: rec.games.chess From: alb...@trigger.cs.wisc.edu (Joseph Albert) - Find messages by this author Date: 17 May 1994 18:30:20 GMT Local: Tues, May 17 1994 11:30 am Subject: Re: rec.games.chess.ics?? Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse In article , Philip Zeyliger wrote: >I would like to point out that there IS an ics group: > alt.chess.ics >Since it is an alt group it seems to have little access to it. >I suggest we make a new group replacing alt.chess.ics to >rec.chess.ics or rec.games.chess.ics so more people could see it. I think we should not split off rec.games.chess.ics, and should not use alt.chess.ics. information about ICS is one of the things that many people find of value in r.g.c splitting off *.ics will just worsen the signal/noise ratio of r.g.c-- there's too much unecessary traffic in that group, but the ics postings seem to contribute to the signal component. i agree the recent lag discussions are a bit heated, but that seems to have mostly played out, and can be continued in email if necessary. if you aren't using a threaded newsreader, you might want to do so. for example, trn allows one to just go thru all the subjects when news is first run, and mark those of interest. then the space bar just iterates reading the posts in those subjects only. when done, just use the c key to catch up and mark everything else read. you can also kill subjects of course. Joseph Albert alb...@cs.wisc.edu Michael Roca May 18 1994, 3:49 am show options Newsgroups: rec.games.chess Followup-To: rec.games.chess From: roca_mich...@tandem.com (Michael Roca) - Find messages by this author Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 04:58:41 GMT Local: Tues, May 17 1994 9:58 pm Subject: Re: rec.games.chess.ics?? Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse In article <2rb2fu$...@daffy.cs.wisc.edu>, alb...@trigger.cs.wisc.edu (Joseph Albert) wrote: > splitting off *.ics will just worsen the signal/noise ratio of r.g.c-- > there's too much unecessary traffic in that group, but the ics postings > seem to contribute to the signal component. I disagree. Everybody considers different topics to be signal and noise. I find a ICS to be a great deal of noise, since I don't use it. ICS seems to have enough traffic to support its own newsgroup. I also don't much care about GM tournament results, but I don't think there are enough of them to support their own group. I do use a threaded news reader and they do help, but people post under different subject lines than the original post and discussions wander around plenty. So you often can't trust the threading. Peter Stein May 18 1994, 4:54 am show options Newsgroups: rec.games.chess From: pst...@falcon.depaul.edu (Peter Stein) - Find messages by this author Date: Tue, 17 May 1994 22:50:52 GMT Local: Tues, May 17 1994 3:50 pm Subject: Re: rec.games.chess.ics?? Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse - Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - In article <1994May16.125555....@ipact.com>, Randy Pals wrote: >Over the 4-5 years that I have followed rec.games.chess, from time to time >discussions about splitting the group have come up. A few that I can >remember right off the top have been: 1) a computer chess vs. non-computer >chess split, 2) a history vs. non-history split, and 3) a moderated vs. >non-moderated split (inspired by a long flame war lit and vigorously fanned >by a poster that went by the handle of DMC). >The "history" split made the most sense of the three, but still found >little support and didn't make it beyond the formal Request for Discussion >stage. The other two were, IMHO, patently bad ideas. >However, now I think there is a possible split which would make sense - a >separate group for ICS technical and political issues (*only*). The reasons I >believe this split would make sense are: >1. There is a clear division of interest along ICS lines. Those of us who > don't have access to the ICS (or don't use it) don't care about posts > relating to where the ICS has moved to today, or why it isn't working, > or why it is so busy, or other technical matters like lag flagging. > (In addition, we aren't crazy about having to pay for the connect time to > receive them, where that applies). >2. The volume of ICS-related posts in the group is significant. Lately, the > lag flagging issue represented a high percentage of the posts. Long term, > that number is lower, but is still quite significant, and there seem to be > regular high-volume bursts. >3. Political and technical matters about the ICS are, after all, not really > related to the game of chess or even to computer chess, they are related > to software which allows people to play games interactively on the Internet. >Don't get me wrong, I think the ICS sounds like a great service. I wish I >could use it. And those of you who can use it might not see the point in a >split. But try to put yourself in the place of someone who can't use ICS >and/or has to pay for every byte of rec.games.chess that comes his way ... >-- >Randy Pals (p...@ipact.com) | >IPACT, Inc. | "Once you give up integrity, the rest is >Automation System Integrators | a piece of cake." - J. R. Ewing I couldn't agree more. I do use ICS, although not as much as in the past. Regardless of the level of use I find this partitionining helpful. Right now with ICS related posts glomped into RGC if I wanted to read the latest ICS posts after a layoff I might not find any, or at least only the very most recent. As its own newsgroup I would think the odds of finding more in the same scenario would be somewhat better. But for the time being I would prefer not to see any ICS posts. I give the Pals proposal an enthusiastic thumbs up. Peter Stein pst...@falcon.depaul.edu James Alan Riechel May 18 1994, 5:52 am show options Newsgroups: rec.games.chess From: jriec...@gaia.gatech.edu (James Alan Riechel) - Find messages by this author Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 00:42:30 GMT Local: Tues, May 17 1994 5:42 pm Subject: Re: rec.games.chess.ics?? Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse pst...@falcon.depaul.edu (Peter Stein) writes: >I couldn't agree more. I do use ICS, although not as much as in the past. >Regardless of the level of use I find this partitionining helpful. Right >now with ICS related posts glomped into RGC if I wanted to read the latest >ICS posts after a layoff I might not find any, or at least only the very >most recent. As its own newsgroup I would think the odds of finding more >in the same scenario would be somewhat better. But for the time being I >would prefer not to see any ICS posts. I give the Pals proposal an >enthusiastic thumbs up. I also agree that creating rec.games.chess.ics may be a good idea. However, I'm concerned about the name "ics." Maybe it should be rec.games.chess.servers, or something similar. The point is that "ics" refers to a single server, while in fact there are several servers in existence (including the independent "fics"). None of us can see into the future and know which will be prominent in, say, a year or two. -- James Riechel "Randal Barnes" May 18 1994, 12:13 pm show options Newsgroups: rec.games.chess From: barne...@maroon.tc.umn.edu ("Randal Barnes") - Find messages by this author Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 18:34:21 GMT Local: Wed, May 18 1994 11:34 am Subject: Re: rec.games.chess.ics?? Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse -- Dr. Randal J. Barnes Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering University of Minnesota Randy Pals May 19 1994, 4:59 am show options Newsgroups: rec.games.chess From: p...@ipact.com (Randy Pals) - Find messages by this author Date: 18 May 94 16:41:45 CDT Local: Wed, May 18 1994 2:41 pm Subject: Re: rec.games.chess.ics?? Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse In article <2rb2fu$...@daffy.cs.wisc.edu>, alb...@trigger.cs.wisc.edu (Joseph Albert) writes: > splitting off *.ics will just worsen the signal/noise ratio of r.g.c-- > there's too much unecessary traffic in that group, but the ics postings > seem to contribute to the signal component. Au contraire! Signal is very much in the eye of the beholder. If all the rec.pets.herp traffic were suddenly to show up in rec.games.chess, I would still consider it signal. However, I doubt that opinion would be shared by many others. So, what *is* it that makes for splittable traffic, anyway? I tried to enumerate that in my original post, primarily 1) clear division of interest and 2) significant volume w.r.t. the group volume. Another criteria which is optional, but compelling when present is 3) subject of potential split is not really related to the original purpose of the group. I think it reasonably obvious that the political and technical aspects of the ICS meet 1) and 2), and a good case can be made that they satisfy 3) as well. > if you aren't using a threaded newsreader, you might want to do so. > for example, trn allows one to just go thru all the subjects when news > is first run, and mark those of interest. then the space bar just > iterates reading the posts in those subjects only. when done, just > use the c key to catch up and mark everything else read. you can > also kill subjects of course. Yep. But the existence of such helps does not make a good case that the split shouldn't be made. As I mentioned before, some of us poor peons actually have to *pay* for every byte of r.g.c that comes our way. And we would appreciate having the special interest material of ICS split. -- - Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - Randy Pals (p...@ipact.com) | IPACT, Inc. | "Once you give up integrity, the rest is Automation System Integrators | a piece of cake." - J. R. Ewing CAPSA May 19 1994, 2:35 pm show options Newsgroups: rec.games.chess From: CAPSA - Find messages by this author Date: 18 May 94 18:42 PDT Subject: Re: rec.games.chess.ics?? Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse One more vote for the idea of Randy Pals. Fraternally, Jerome Bibuld Philip Zeyliger May 23 1994, 8:32 pm show options Newsgroups: rec.games.chess From: v...@netcom.com (Philip Zeyliger) - Find messages by this author Date: Tue, 17 May 1994 15:47:21 GMT Local: Tues, May 17 1994 8:47 am Subject: Re: rec.games.chess.ics?? Reply to Author | Forward | Print | Individual Message | Show original | Report Abuse I would like to point out that there IS an ics group: alt.chess.ics Since it is an alt group it seems to have little access to it. I suggest we make a new group replacing alt.chess.ics to rec.chess.ics or rec.games.chess.ics so more people could see it . As i understand it a lot of people don't get or read alt groups because they include millions of groups created by some person who has nothing better to do (like: alt.i.created.this.since.i.am.bored) Also, people don't know about this. I found out about it when someone posted a message that there is one... -- Philip Zeyliger v...@netcom.com -- v...@netcom.com