🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <103905@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:
>In article <15208@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes:
[...]
>>			    And newsgroup naming is an important
>>administration issue.
>
>May I be so bold as to ask why?

	Indeed.  But names *are* important;  just not all the time and to
everyone.

	Can we not adapt existing or proposed tools?

	The groups could be called 1, 2, 3, ... (or, violet, indigo, blue
or un, deux, trois, or whatever we agreed).  In C News, the group can be
re-named on arrival;  so *I* can call group 47 "rec.aquaria", *you* can
call it "sci.fish" and *he* can call it "sky.blue.pink.junk".  The same
effect can be achieved if Barry Shein's "groupcap" file ever stops being
pie-in-the-sky, takes off, and reaches the ground [:-)].

	OK, so I can now propose a new group called "3456", with as its
charter blah, blah, blah, it gets voted on, and we can all call it
whatever we like.  How's that?  Well, I suppose we need a list of
suggested names, so the checkgroups messages look a bit like:

	...
	3456 [discussion of silly proposals] sci.pie, a.rose.by.another.name
	...

Oh yes, and we need a filter, so that every occurrence of "sci.pie" on my
outgoing news:  "Over on sci.pie, they're talking about this right now!"
gets turned into:  "Over on \*3456, they're talking about this right now!"
so that it can be turned into:  "Over on a.rose.by.another.name, they're
talking about this right now!" on your system.  Except for checkgroups and
other metanews, of course!

>Names do have an importance, but like street names in town, you don't have
>a referendum on them.  And they do get debated, but you don't see city
>council spending half its time on naming the streets.

	Depends on your town!  There was much time wasted in the UK over
the conversion of "Selous Street" to "Mandela Street".

-- 
Andy Walker, Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK.
anw@maths.nott.ac.uk