🚀 go-pugleaf

i'm going to spin off a "comp.archives.lists" from the comp.archives
group.

the purpose of a comp.archives.lists group will be to separate out
the comp.archives traffic that meets the following charter:

- lists, collections, directories, or other compendia of information
  about archive sites or services, i.e. the Granrose list, the
  "archie" active site list, and other topical collections.
- periodic postings of archive site usage information, including
  number of connections, most popular downloads, and other traffic
  metrics. 
- other information which is pertinent to the smooth care and
  operation of archives on a worldwide scale, which is directory
  rather than discussion oriented, and which has current value for
  only a limited amount of time.

Materials for comp.archives.lists would have the same editorial
license and quality control applied to them as the current
comp.archives production.  Care will be taken not to post lists which
are extremely monstrous without some amount of effort to keep article
sizes in check.  As is the custom of other .lists groups, materials
will appear on roughly a monthly cycle, dependent of course on their
availability.  comp.archives will no longer carry these materials,
they will not be cross-posted.  comp.archives.lists materials will be
available from anonymous FTP locations as is the usual custom whenever
possible; as far as I can manage, they will also be searchable on-line
with some kind of full text indexing.  

Motivation for the change:
- Monthly comprehensive postings tend to be huge, much larger than the
  2-5k average article sizes for comp.archives.  In order to produce
  efficient indexes for comp.archives, it's necessary to separate out
  the materials that refer to a small number of package from those
  which are comprehensive; that cuts way down on the number of false
  hits when you look for something.
- I haven't been posting big things, even though they're interesting,
  because my archivist gets upset.  So my 'lists' MH folder is
  starting to fill up.  I don't like it when folders fill up.
- Production of lists, catalogs, and indexes is a useful function
  quite independent from the discovery of new materials; providing a
  new space for these catalogs and some effort in developing them
  would be a good thing to do.

I invite your comments.  No scheduled start date yet; there's some
preparation to be done first, archive sites to be arranged, discussion
to be had.  followup to comp.archives.admin if you get it at your site
(we have it locally for some reason :) or to news.groups,comp.sources.d.

-- 
Edward Vielmetti, vice president for research, MSEN Inc. emv@msen.com

"(6) The Plan shall identify how agencies and departments can
collaborate to ... expand efforts to improve, document, and evaluate
unclassified public-domain software developed by federally-funded
researchers and other software, including federally-funded educational
and training software; "
			"High-Performance Computing Act of 1991, S. 272"