🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1537:Dec1108:31:5790@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>, brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
|> So why my accusations that you simply don't believe?

  As I have already explained, Dan, in the portion of my article you did not
bother to quote, I made no accusations.  I simply stated possibilities.  When
trying to analyze a situation, it is usually a good idea to put all
possibilities, even the ones that you think are less probable, on the table in
order to have a full picture of what's going on.  Here's what I said in the
original article:

>  It is entirely possible that Rich has been reading the discussion in this
>newsgroup, and has posted sources recently because of that discussion.  It is
>entirely possible that the activity of the past week will taper out as it has
>many times in the past, and that we will then see several months with no
>activity at all, despite many items waiting to be posted.  Your assertiong
>that "this week has been active" does nothing whatsoever to belie the claim
>that the TREND has been toward more idle gaps and less activity.

This paragraph was posted in response to a paragraph in which Kent Paul Dolan
claimed that since several messages have been posted in the last week or so,
Rich must be "_pouring_ sources out."  I was trying to point out that such a
generalization based only on the number of postings in the past week, without
considering any other external factors, is not very wise, and I did so by
pointing out just *one* factor that might have affected the number of postings.

|> Yes, it's conceivable that complaints cause postings to appear in
|> comp.sources.unix. So what? If the packages are appearing, then they're
|> appearing. I don't care what the ``causes'' are.

  If complaints are what causes postings to appear, then it logically follows
that in order for postings to continue to appear regularly, we have to
continue complaining.  Perhaps you consider that an acceptable solution; I do
not.  I do not think that people should have to complain before a moderator
does his job.  If you disagree with that, then we'll just have to agree to
disagree.

|> Well, golly gee. My first submission to a professional mathematical
|> journal was in limbo for two years. This is called industry practice.

  Are you equating comp.sources.unix with a professional mathematical journal,
Dan?  Gee, that one rates pretty high up there on the Gilly scale; I'd say
it's at least a centigilly.

  If you think that six months between submission and posting is a reasonable
time lag for comp.sources.unix, then once again, we will have to agree to
disagree, because I do not, for two reasons.  First of all, because the time
lag has been a lot smaller in the past, and second of all, because I believe
that it is possible to reduce the time lag now.

|> You say that some postings go through Rich without change (other than
|> repackaging). Guess what? A huge number of math papers are published
|> without change (other than repackaging).

  Once again, I'm afraid I just don't think the parallel between a printed
mathematics journal and comp.sources.unix is strong enough to make any
comparison worthwhile.  Among other things, you usually have to pay to get a
journal.  Editors of journals are usually paid, nor volunteer workers. 
Editors of journals can usually get fired if they aren't doing their jobs.

  My point, which you seem to have either missed or ignored, was in response
to the incredible job that Rich must be doing since so many packages that go
through comp.sources.unix have had major portions rewritten by him.  Well,
I've been watching comp.sources.unix for a long time, and I don't recall
seeing *any* packages with "major portions rewritten by him."  Maybe I just
missed them.  But until the person who made that claim puts up some
statistics, I will not accept it as any sort of evidence of what a wonderful
job Rich does as moderator.

  Mind you, that doesn't mean I don't think he does a good job.  By and large,
I think he does a very good job.  When he gets around to it.

|> >   What exactly do you consider <1990Dec3.064608.22544@athena.mit.edu>, Dan?
|> 
|> A rather vacuous article that draws no reliable statistical conclusions.
|> The nearly incomprehensible graph (Tufte strongly recommends a table for
|> similar situations) doesn't justify your complaints.

  Well, gee, Dan, maybe the fact that the graph was "nearly incomprehensible"
is why I presented a table of data right above the graph, so that people who
thought the graph was a bit difficult to read could read the data directly or
use it to produce their own graphs?  It took me ten minutes to produce that
graph once I had the data; I suspect that anyone reading this conversation
who's really interested can find a tool at his/her site to produce a more
readable (i.e. not text-based :-) grap relatively quickly.  If not, they can
read the raw data.

  It seems to me, Dan, that you're just searching for ways to criticize what
I've posted; in particular, your claims that I have not posted "statistics"
seem to be quite specious, especially since I've posted more statistics than
anyone else involved in this discussion.  I took the time to go through all of
the archives and figure out what's been happening for the past few years; no
one else did.  When someone said that only two people have been complaining, I
took the time to go through the entire conversation and verify, objectively,
that this was not the case.

  You accuse my data of drawing "no reliable statistical conclusions," and yet
you defend the conclusions of someone who posts, "There have been an average
of two packages per week by adding together all of the packages on uunet and
dividing by the number of weeks, so there must not be a flow problem?"  That's
laughable, Dan.

  You say that the graph I included doesn't justify my complaints.  I say that
it does.  My first complaint was that output to the newsgroup has been very
irregular.  The graph shows that this is, indeed, the case.  Now you may say,
"But it's always been irregular," tho which I respond, "Then perhaps it's
always been a problem?"  Whether or not it's always been irregular does not
invalidate the complaint or make it impossible for the data/graph to justify
the complain.

  My second complaint is that the delays between submssion and posting are
getting longer.  As I've pointed out several times, the only person who can
verify this statistically is Rich, since he's the only person who knows how
many and how often submissions are received.  However, I've posted several
lines of reasoning which I think show that it is likely that this complaint is
correct.  I don't recall seeing you respond to any of them, so I'll post them
again for your benefit:

  (1) The increasing number of complaints from people who have seen submitted
sources and not had them posted after long delays would seem to imply that
there are more people having this problem, which would seem to imply that
either the delays are getting longer or the number of packages that are
delayed is increasing, or both.

  (2) The net has been growing, and with it, the number of programmers has
been growing.  The source traffic to almost every newsgroup on the net has
been increasing.  It stands to reason, then, that the source submission rate
to c.s.u has been increasing.  Despite that, the posting rate to c.s.u has
*not* been increasing significantly.  If the submission rate goes up but the
posting rate does not, then there must be longer delays.

|> I didn't call your complaints idiotic. I do consider your recent
|> postings here to be full of whining and drivel, and I've given you
|> several reasons for my opinion; I don't mean to insult you by giving an
|> honest evaluation. (That's what ``no offense intended'' means.)

  I have, over and over again, attempted to explain, calmly and using reason,
why I think there is a problem.  I have not called for a lynch mob to hang
Rich.  I have not attempted to win the discussion using emotionalism, or
arguments appealing to the status quo, or arguments appealing to which netters
are "newbies" and which are "not."  I therefore fail to see what I have said
that could be classified as "whining."

  Or is any opinion which disagrees with yours "whining?"  You *know* that
there's no problem in c.s.u, so if someone disagrees with you and thinks that
there is a problem, they must be "whining," is that it?

-- 
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