Reading Newsnet

Message-ID: < anews.Auiucdcs.150>
Newsgroups: net.general
Path: utzoo!decvax!duke!uiucdcs!kolstad
X-Path: utzoo!decvax!duke!uiucdcs!kolstad
From: uiucdcs!kolstad
Date: Fri Oct  9 15:19:48 1981
Subject: Reading Newsnet

        The news network as it stands now is certainly a usable tool.
However, I sometimes find it difficult to follow the thread of topics and
discussions on a single topic since responses to previous queries are
intertwined with other responses and newer queries.  I would like to describe
another -news- system developed at a rival department here at the U of
Illinois which has a single feature which I think would solve the problem of
interspersing.

        The PLATO computer aided instruction system runs at U of I on a CDC
6500 (dual processor 6400) and a CDC Cyber 74 (dual processor also).  Through
the use of 40,000,000 bytes of extended memory (really!) it achieves
reasonable response time for 625 concurrent users (which is pretty amazing,
when you think about it).  The total user base numbers in the thousands for
this centralized system -- which uses phone lines to connect to tens of sites
distributed across the U.S.

        Plato's large user community, shared memory, and ample disk space
motivated implementation of "notesfiles".  These "notesfiles" are similar to
the news-net and similar to some advanced bulletin board systems.  Each
notesfile is supposedly devoted to a single topic and has a number of notes.
Each note can have a number of responses.  The responses ARE ASSOCIATED WITH
THE NOTE.  So -- when you read note "Flaming about netnews", you see the
responses to THAT NOTE after the note itself.  A driver program (the
"sequencer") traverses the simple tree in time-order, thus allowing display of
only those unseen notes (it shows the "base note" then unread responses for
that note).  The increase in discussion continuity and utility is great.
There are now 1500 notesfiles on Plato with statistics compiled for the last
1119 days:  5,700,000 entries to the note system (5162/day) with an average of
1428 new notes/day.  Devotees have one to two dozen notesfiles on their
sequencer.  It is simple to skip discussions that are not pertinent -- and
simple to follow others in detail (and sequence).

        The last year has seen U of I's Plato notesfiles linked with Control
Data's Plato systems to provide "Intersystem Notesfiles".  These work just
like this news net (with the exception that routing is not explicit -- notes
are automatically routed to the correct system) and have become fairly
reliable.

        I believe that the news net would benefit greatly by augmenting it
with this kind of tree structure.  Comments?

                                Rob Kolstad = duke!uiucdcs!kolstad