NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/alt/irc/4614

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-12 | 2.0 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!munnari.oz.au!manuel.anu.edu.au!coombs!avalon
From: [e-mail] (Darren Reed)
Newsgroups: alt.irc
Subject: Re: Waxing nostalgic without much of a point.
Date: 12 Dec 92 13:26:44 GMT
Organization: Australian National University
Lines: 30
Message-ID: <avalon.724166804@coombs>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 150.203.76.2

[e-mail] (Gregory J. Meyers) writes:

)      The next problem is, of course, who should write it.  Well, let everyone
) who wants to give it a try, and their resulting suggestions can be tried out
) and compared.  Whichever produces the best performance (Surely there is some
) way this can be measured in an absolute fashion, e.g. average reaction time
) for all servers?) would then be tested further--still only making suggestions
) to operators of course--and only THEN, if it had already proved its worth,
) might it be given the ability to make the changes itself.  It could be moni-
) tored thereafter to make sure nothing went wrong; I'm certain all operators
) would be scrutinizing it quite carefully.  The whole thing could be dropped
) at any time.

Well if anyone succesffuly builds one which can compete with human operators
in matters of keeping the net sane, they should probably patent it.
A CS degree with Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems majors would be a
minimal prerequisite.  Its not always simply a case of "who's missing".

[...]
)      This has also been mentioned, and not everyone agrees.  It seems to be
) worse in the U.S.  At any rate, it's one of those things that needs to be
) addressed, and not just dismissed.  Obviously I don't know enough about
) the political side of IRC to make many intelligent suggestions, but there are
) others on this board who clearly do, and I'd like to encourage them to speak
) up if they haven't already.  It's a matter that should be discussed.  If we
) talk about it rationally we might come to some sort of agreement.j

Don't you know that most CS types (ie operators, etc) hate politics....

avalon