*NOTE* This is a RETIRED java newsgroup. Please redirect.

[Thomas G. Marshall]

This message is sent to these newsgroups because they are no longer
valid:

comp.lang.java
comp.lang.java. api
comp.lang.java. bugs
comp.lang.java. misc
comp.lang.java. setup
comp.lang.java. tech

These are long since retired newsgroups. You may have ended up in one
by posting on google groups, or verizon, or any number of ISP's that
still carry them (and should not). You will get a far better audience
by redirecting your future posts to one of the "officially active"
newsgroups below.

Here are the java groups with descriptions, as posted monthly in
news.announce.n ewgroups, under the subject "List of Big Eight
Newsgroups":

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/...dfac4b68b6de8c
comp.lang.java. 3d 3D Graphics API's for the Java language.
comp.lang.java. advocacy Support for and criticism of the Java System.
comp.lang.java. announce Announcements re the Java System. (Moderated)
comp.lang.java. beans Java software components (JavaBeans).
comp.lang.java. corba Topics relating to Java and CORBA.
comp.lang.java. databases Databases, java.sql, JDBC, ODBC.
comp.lang.java. gui GUI toolkits and windowing: AWT, IFC etc.
comp.lang.java. help Set-up problems, catch-all first aid.
comp.lang.java. machine JVM, native methods, hardware.
comp.lang.java. programmer Programming in the Java language.
comp.lang.java. security Security issues raised by Java.
comp.lang.java. softwaretools IDEs, browsers, compilers, other tools.

[Raymond DeCampo]

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

This message is sent to these newsgroups because they are no longer
valid:

comp.lang.java
comp.lang.java. api
comp.lang.java. bugs
comp.lang.java. misc
comp.lang.java. setup
comp.lang.java. tech

These are long since retired newsgroups. You may have ended up in one
by posting on google groups, or verizon, or any number of ISP's that
still carry them (and should not).

Why shouldn't ISPs carry these groups? Because they are not "official"?
What's wrong with some ISPs deciding they would like to carry a
newsgroup on their own, without it having the "official" label? If ISPs
want to provide additional services to their customers I see nothing
wrong with it.

Ray

--
XML is the programmer's duct tape.

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Raymond DeCampo coughed up:

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

This message is sent to these newsgroups because they are no longer
valid:

comp.lang.java
comp.lang.java. api
comp.lang.java. bugs
comp.lang.java. misc
comp.lang.java. setup
comp.lang.java. tech

These are long since retired newsgroups. You may have ended up in
one by posting on google groups, or verizon, or any number of ISP's
that still carry them (and should not).

Why shouldn't ISPs carry these groups? Because they are not
"official"? What's wrong with some ISPs deciding they would like to
carry a newsgroup on their own, without it having the "official"
label? If ISPs want to provide additional services to their
customers I see nothing wrong with it.

Ray

BECAUSE THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO *DO* KNOW BETTER DON'T PERUSE OR RESPOND
TO THEM ANY LONGER.

Verizon has as its policy to keep a newsgroup around that has been asked
for, even if it was only once and a long time ago. This means that as
groups are added and retired, the ones that are supposed to be retired just
never go away, and the number of groups overall increases.

And remember, we're talking about the big-8 groups here, which have
charters.

The people who *know* how to look up the groups in news.announce.n ewgroups
have already moved on to the new groups for perusal and dropped the old ones
from their list. That leaves the following people left in the retired
groups:

1. the ones who don't know any better
and
2. the ones too stubborn to leave.

If you insist on being #2, then so be it; it's predictable that there would
be a few in that camp. But hopefully these posts will educate the folks in
group #1 that their posts are not going to be read by nearly as many, since
the vast majority of the experts who hover in usenet to frequently help
people have moved on to the right groups.
--
Onedoctortoanot her:"Ifthisismy rectalthermomet er,wherethehell 'smypen???"

[Raymond DeCampo]

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

Raymond DeCampo coughed up:

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

This message is sent to these newsgroups because they are no longer
valid:

comp.lang.java
comp.lang.java. api
comp.lang.java. bugs
comp.lang.java. misc
comp.lang.java. setup
comp.lang.java. tech

These are long since retired newsgroups. You may have ended up in
one by posting on google groups, or verizon, or any number of ISP's
that still carry them (and should not).

Why shouldn't ISPs carry these groups? Because they are not
"official"? What's wrong with some ISPs deciding they would like to
carry a newsgroup on their own, without it having the "official"
label? If ISPs want to provide additional services to their
customers I see nothing wrong with it.

Ray

BECAUSE THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO *DO* KNOW BETTER DON'T PERUSE OR RESPOND
TO THEM ANY LONGER.

So what? Just because the "majority of people" don't read a newsgroup
means an ISP shouldn't carry it? I'm glad you're not in charge.

Verizon has as its policy to keep a newsgroup around that has been asked
for, even if it was only once and a long time ago. This means that as
groups are added and retired, the ones that are supposed to be retired just
never go away, and the number of groups overall increases.
Again, so what? Don't you expect the number of groups to increase even
in your ideal world where everyone follows the "official" rules?

And remember, we're talking about the big-8 groups here, which have
charters.
More meaningless terminology.

The people who *know* how to look up the groups in news.announce.n ewgroups
have already moved on to the new groups for perusal and dropped the old ones
from their list. That leaves the following people left in the retired
groups:

1. the ones who don't know any better
and
2. the ones too stubborn to leave.

If you insist on being #2, then so be it; it's predictable that there would
be a few in that camp. But hopefully these posts will educate the folks in
group #1 that their posts are not going to be read by nearly as many, since
the vast majority of the experts who hover in usenet to frequently help
people have moved on to the right groups.

A while ago there was a group of people in my town who would get
together every month or so at a particular restaurant and talk about
computers. The meetings became more and more popular. Eventually a
formal club was chartered and a specific date and time was chosen for
the meetings and a different restaurant. But there were still a few
people who would meet at the old restaurant at the old time. There was
a guy, however, who kept coming around telling people about the new
meeting place and time. Nobody really minded that. But then he started
to tell people that they shouldn't go to the old meetings, because they
weren't sponsored by the club. He even went so so far as to go to the
restaurant owner and tell him that he couldn't allow the people to meet
at the restaurant! Fortunately the the owner had more common sense than
that.

Ray

--
XML is the programmer's duct tape.

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Raymond DeCampo coughed up:

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

Raymond DeCampo coughed up:

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

This message is sent to these newsgroups because they are no longer
valid:

comp.lang.java
comp.lang.java. api
comp.lang.java. bugs
comp.lang.java. misc
comp.lang.java. setup
comp.lang.java. tech

These are long since retired newsgroups. You may have ended up in
one by posting on google groups, or verizon, or any number of ISP's
that still carry them (and should not).
Why shouldn't ISPs carry these groups? Because they are not
"official"? What's wrong with some ISPs deciding they would like to
carry a newsgroup on their own, without it having the "official"
label? If ISPs want to provide additional services to their
customers I see nothing wrong with it.

Ray

BECAUSE THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO *DO* KNOW BETTER DON'T PERUSE OR
RESPOND TO THEM ANY LONGER.

So what? Just because the "majority of people" don't read a newsgroup
means an ISP shouldn't carry it? I'm glad you're not in charge.

The reason that an ISP shouldn't carry the group is because that once a
group becomes officially retired, the population of the people who know
better dwindles. Such people are the ones that are most often in usenet
helping others.

The only purpose that keeping such groups around serves is to confuse the
people who don't know which ones are which, and who don't know how to find
out which ones are which. The people who don't know any better will
patiently wait around for a mere fraction of the replies that they would
otherwise get had they known where to better place their post. The point of
this post is to mitigate that.

There is a facility within usenet for the creation and retiring of groups,
did you know that? I doubt it. Once a group is voted on to be
renamed/removed, the results are then sent to the servers as a /control
message/. A fairly readable rendition of what happens is here:

http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/big-eight.html

And here is an easy read of the control messages themselves. Pay attention
to the "newgroup" and "rmgroup" messages:

http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_netwo...s.control.html

There's always a few like you who feel that such ideas are an authority
creeping into your free usenet. There's always a few like you who feel that
anyone teaching others about (in this case) which groups are officially
listed or not is attempting to be some sort of self appointed ruler.

There are always a few like you. Your entire argument was predicted by me
at the start. It's not hard really---imagine the simplest unthinking
knee-jerk reaction possible. Have fun staying in these retired groups. My
goal here is to educate those who by no fault of their own don't know any
better.

--
"It's easier to be terrified by an enemy you admire."
-Thufir Hawat, Mentat and Master of Assassins to House Atreides

[Raymond DeCampo]

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

Raymond DeCampo coughed up:

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

Raymond DeCampo coughed up:
Thomas G. Marshall wrote:
>This message is sent to these newsgroups because they are no longer
>valid:
>
> comp.lang.java
> comp.lang.java. api
> comp.lang.java. bugs
> comp.lang.java. misc
> comp.lang.java. setup
> comp.lang.java. tech
>
>These are long since retired newsgroups. You may have ended up in
>one by posting on google groups, or verizon, or any number of ISP's
>that still carry them (and should not).
>

Why shouldn't ISPs carry these groups? Because they are not
"official "? What's wrong with some ISPs deciding they would like to
carry a newsgroup on their own, without it having the "official"
label? If ISPs want to provide additional services to their
customers I see nothing wrong with it.

Ray
BECAUSE THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO *DO* KNOW BETTER DON'T PERUSE OR
RESPOND TO THEM ANY LONGER.
So what? Just because the "majority of people" don't read a newsgroup
means an ISP shouldn't carry it? I'm glad you're not in charge.

The reason that an ISP shouldn't carry the group is because that once a
group becomes officially retired, the population of the people who know
better dwindles. Such people are the ones that are most often in usenet
helping others.

The only purpose that keeping such groups around serves is to confuse the
people who don't know which ones are which, and who don't know how to find
out which ones are which. The people who don't know any better will
patiently wait around for a mere fraction of the replies that they would
otherwise get had they known where to better place their post. The point of
this post is to mitigate that.

I haven't criticized that aspect of your post.
There is a facility within usenet for the creation and retiring of groups,
did you know that? I doubt it. Once a group is voted on to be
renamed/removed, the results are then sent to the servers as a /control
message/. A fairly readable rendition of what happens is here:

http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/big-eight.html

And here is an easy read of the control messages themselves. Pay attention
to the "newgroup" and "rmgroup" messages:

http://www.faqs.org/docs/linux_netwo...s.control.html

I really don't care. Standards are good for specifying the format of
information. They are not good for specifying the content of information.
There's always a few like you who feel that such ideas are an authority
creeping into your free usenet. There's always a few like you who feel that
anyone teaching others about (in this case) which groups are officially
listed or not is attempting to be some sort of self appointed ruler.

No, I have no problem with posts that educate people about what other
newsgroups are out there or what their commonly determined purposes are.

The problem I have with your posts is the implication that ISPs should
only carry newsgroups that some other standards body has deemed
"official". ISPs should be free to carry whatever newsgroups they wish.
There are always a few like you. Your entire argument was predicted by me
at the start. It's not hard really---imagine the simplest unthinking
knee-jerk reaction possible.
Your argument hasn't exactly knocked my socks off with its originality
either. Imagine the most anal-retentive, by-the-book mentality possible.

BTW, my argument also has the benefit of being actually realized. ISPs
are free to carry whatever newsgroups they want, as evidenced by our
conversation.
Have fun staying in these retired groups. My
goal here is to educate those who by no fault of their own don't know any
better.

I find it interesting that you consider me "staying" in the retired
groups. I "stay" at my house. I'll "post" in whichever group I want to.

Ray

--
XML is the programmer's duct tape.

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Raymond DeCampo coughed up:

....[rip]...

Imagine the most anal-retentive, by-the-book mentality
possible.

I have no respect whatsoever for rules that exist for rule's sake. These
rules were not ever meant to be, nor should they be, /strictly/ enforceable.
There is no one advocating a federal law against ISP's maintaining whatever
group they want, for example.

However, the guidelines and procedures for maintaining which groups exist
and which do not exist only to help facilitate the usage of usenet. People
like you like to imply that usenet would have been able to grow to the same
level of useful organization if it was completely devoid of such constructs.

In other words, this "by the book mentality" as you put it, is largely
responsible for the useful organization of usenet as it is. And it is far
from anal-retentive. USENET was designed to be as fiat-free as possible.
Otherwise, early on there would have been a push for the centralized
consortium granting licenses to use usenet, licenses that would be revoked
if the rules were not followed. As it is now, ISP's of course have the
ability to maintain whatever groups they want. But for all the reasons
described, they should honor the big-8 usenet charters, and should not
ignore the control messages which are designed to help usenet.

The beauty of usenet is that it is as self-policing as possible.

Again, this is about making sure that those who do not know of the big-8
charters, know where to best place their posts.

When ISP's arbitrarily hold on to retired groups, all they succeed in doing
is confusing the daylights out of people who do not know better.

Silvio Bierman was able to make an intelligent argument as to why the group
comp.lang.java /should/ have been the general catch-all group. That is
indeed a separate argument. I myself would probably have liked to see
comp.lang.java kept as official, but since it is not, its existence only
hurts those who don't know how to find the right groups.

I wish you well.

....[rip]...

--
"Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room!"

[Raymond DeCampo]

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

Raymond DeCampo coughed up:

...[rip]...

Imagine the most anal-retentive, by-the-book mentality
possible.
I have no respect whatsoever for rules that exist for rule's sake. These
rules were not ever meant to be, nor should they be, /strictly/ enforceable.
There is no one advocating a federal law against ISP's maintaining whatever
group they want, for example.

Actually, I regret making the above statement. You started us down the
road towards an insult driven flame war and I took the bait. I'll glad
you took the high road in this post.

However, the guidelines and procedures for maintaining which groups exist
and which do not exist only to help facilitate the usage of usenet. People
like you like to imply that usenet would have been able to grow to the same
level of useful organization if it was completely devoid of such constructs.

In other words, this "by the book mentality" as you put it, is largely
responsible for the useful organization of usenet as it is. And it is far
from anal-retentive. USENET was designed to be as fiat-free as possible.
Otherwise, early on there would have been a push for the centralized
consortium granting licenses to use usenet, licenses that would be revoked
if the rules were not followed.
As it is now, ISP's of course have the
ability to maintain whatever groups they want.
Of your entire post, this is the only point I have been arguing.
But for all the reasons
described, they should honor the big-8 usenet charters, and should not
ignore the control messages which are designed to help usenet.
Yada yada yada -- if an ISP determines that their customers are better
served by ignoring the messages, they should do it. For example, a
pop-up blocker allows a browser to ignore standardized messages that
tell it to create new windows.

The beauty of usenet is that it is as self-policing as possible.
This is an incomplete thought; there are unstated assumptions in the
subtext. I imagine you mean that it is as self-policing as possible
given its "level of useful organization" you refer to above.

Again, this is about making sure that those who do not know of the big-8
charters, know where to best place their posts.
I haven't ever complained about that and I have no problem with it.

When ISP's arbitrarily hold on to retired groups, all they succeed in doing
is confusing the daylights out of people who do not know better.
Please; I doubt that there are a lot of people that stumble into the
usenet, post a single message to a newsgroup and wait in a confused
state for a response. There are tons of forums for discussing
everything under the sun, nobody is going to sit around waiting for a
response from one group. If they get do not get a response, they will
post to another forum.

Besides, we are talking about newbies here; they are much more likely to
cross-post, multi-post and re-post every five minutes than to post once
and disappear.

Silvio Bierman was able to make an intelligent argument as to why the group
comp.lang.java /should/ have been the general catch-all group. That is
indeed a separate argument. I myself would probably have liked to see
comp.lang.java kept as official, but since it is not, its existence only
hurts those who don't know how to find the right groups.
Yes, that is a separate argument. Why did you bring it up if you know
that it is not relevant? My point is not about comp.lang.java
specifically but about the idea that ISPs should not blindly follow the
wishes of a separate body; they should independently decide which
newsgroups they would like to carry.

Besides, if you are so concerned about the confused users posting to the
"unofficial " groups, why don't reply to them and let them know when they do?

I wish you well.

...[rip]...

Ray

--
XML is the programmer's duct tape.

[Thomas G. Marshall]

Raymond DeCampo coughed up:

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

....[rip]...

As it is now, ISP's of course have the
ability to maintain whatever groups they want.

Of your entire post, this is the only point I have been arguing.

My statements have always explicitly been about what the ISP /should/ be
doing. From the original post, you took exception to that as if I was
stating what they /cannot/ do. We may be dealing with at least a partially
semantic argument after all. Perhaps.

Let me bring it down to the brass tacks, and let's see where the contention
really is. Here's two facts that we should get out of the way, which I
never intended on including before:

1. ISP's are within the law to maintain any group they like, with a few
obvious exceptions we need not get into here.

2. ISP's are within rights to maintain any group that they choose at their
discretion, if they feel that they should for whatever reason, including
that they feel that their customers "want" them.

Now let's leave those two out of it for now.

ISP's /should/ (substitute "ought to ideally" if it makes you feel better)
be listening to the usenet newgroup and rmgroup messages. If they don't
then it's likely for one of a few reasons. Focusing on removal: given an
ignored rmgroup to remove Big-8 group X, possible reasons:

a. They get requests for X from their customers.
b. They don't trust the PGP signatures for the control messages.
c. It's easier to adopt a single strategy for both big-8 and non-big-8
groups.

In (a), this is a potential problem, because the customers in all likelihood
have no idea that the group has been officially retired. This means that
such a group might stay on indefinitely, but with a crippled audience list.
Not listening to usenet control messages allows the newsgroups to fragment
chaotically. There are already far too many java groups reachable from some
ISP's as it stands.

Furthermore, using only customer requests can result in newsgroups that were
never in the plans to begin with. I'm not sure, and have been looking for
historical record, but I think that comp.lang.java. developer might actually
be an example of that. But in any case, surely you can see how not using
the control messages could end up easily with 50 java groups.

Newcomers also have no way of knowing that their posts to comp.lang.java
won't even be reachable by many ISP's. The ISP's that properly honor the
control messages won't even carry comp.lang.java.

(b) is harder to solve. No idea what to do there.

(c) is just laziness, or a misunderstandin g.

--
"His name was Robert Paulson. His name was Robert Paulson. His name was
Robert Paulson..."

[Raymond DeCampo]

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

Raymond DeCampo coughed up:

Thomas G. Marshall wrote:

...[rip]...

As it is now, ISP's of course have the
ability to maintain whatever groups they want.

Of your entire post, this is the only point I have been arguing.

My statements have always explicitly been about what the ISP /should/ be
doing. From the original post, you took exception to that as if I was
stating what they /cannot/ do. We may be dealing with at least a partially
semantic argument after all. Perhaps.

Perhaps I read your should more strongly than you meant it.

Let me bring it down to the brass tacks, and let's see where the contention
really is. Here's two facts that we should get out of the way, which I
never intended on including before:

1. ISP's are within the law to maintain any group they like, with a few
obvious exceptions we need not get into here.

2. ISP's are within rights to maintain any group that they choose at their
discretion, if they feel that they should for whatever reason, including
that they feel that their customers "want" them.

Now let's leave those two out of it for now.

ISP's /should/ (substitute "ought to ideally" if it makes you feel better)
be listening to the usenet newgroup and rmgroup messages. If they don't
then it's likely for one of a few reasons. Focusing on removal: given an
ignored rmgroup to remove Big-8 group X, possible reasons:

a. They get requests for X from their customers.
b. They don't trust the PGP signatures for the control messages.
c. It's easier to adopt a single strategy for both big-8 and non-big-8
groups.

In (a), this is a potential problem, because the customers in all likelihood
have no idea that the group has been officially retired. This means that
such a group might stay on indefinitely, but with a crippled audience list.
Not listening to usenet control messages allows the newsgroups to fragment
chaotically. There are already far too many java groups reachable from some
ISP's as it stands.

Furthermore, using only customer requests can result in newsgroups that were
never in the plans to begin with. I'm not sure, and have been looking for
historical record, but I think that comp.lang.java. developer might actually
be an example of that. But in any case, surely you can see how not using
the control messages could end up easily with 50 java groups.

Newcomers also have no way of knowing that their posts to comp.lang.java
won't even be reachable by many ISP's. The ISP's that properly honor the
control messages won't even carry comp.lang.java.

(b) is harder to solve. No idea what to do there.
Probably an unlikely scenario in any case.

(c) is just laziness, or a misunderstandin g.

Probably the reason they still carry the groups (not customer desire).

Thanks for the discussion.

Ray

--
XML is the programmer's duct tape.