Re: New forum (comp.software.internat) on i18n

["Daniel R. Kegel" <dank@alumni.cco.caltech.edu>]

Alain (ALB@immedia.ca) asked,
>Dan, I would be interested in such a forum, which takes into account de facto
>and de jure standards and would be open to a general public.  ...
>However I am not sure if I understand the difference between a mailing list and
>a news list. Could you help me?

Alain,
the advantages of a Usenet newsgroup over a mailing list include:
1) Usenet newsreader programs tell you about new newsgroups, whereas
   it's hard to find out about all existing mailing lists, 
2) to start reading a Usenet group, you just say 'yes', whereas
   it's sometimes hard to figure out how to join a mailing list,
3) a Usenet newsgroup is more efficient that a mailing list
   for more than about 100 participants, as newsgroups are broadcast
   to all news servers rather than sent to each subscriber individually.
4) mailing lists tend to crowd one's mailbox with junk, and are hard
   to turn off, whereas subscribing to a Usenet newsgroup has no
   effect on one's e-mail at all.  It's one less thing to worry about
   when going on vacation or moving.

Just to give you an idea of how many people can be served by a newsgroup,
here is part of the latest report on Usenet readership:
>Subject: USENET Readership report for Jan 94
>Date: 8 Feb 1994 13:59:13 -0800
>Lines: 2855
>This is the full set of data from the USENET readership report for Jan 94.
>Explanations of the figures are in a companion posting.
>        +-- Estimated total number of people who read the group, worldwide.
>        |     +-- Actual number of readers in sampled population
>        |     |     +-- Propagation: how many sites receive this group at all
>        |     |     |      +-- Recent traffic (messages per month)
>        |     |     |      |      +-- Recent traffic (kilobytes per month)
>        |     |     |      |      |      +-- Crossposting percentage
>        |     |     |      |      |      |    +-- Cost ratio: $US/month/rdr
>        |     |     |      |      |      |    |      +-- Share: % of newsrders
>        |     |     |      |      |      |    |      |   who read this group.
>        V     V     V      V      V      V    V      V
>   1 510000  6243   90%     2    25.1   100% 0.00 12.3% news.announce.newusers 
>   4 330000  4066   88%     5   351.3   100% 0.00  8.0% news.answers 
>  13 210000  2559   90%    80   470.5   100% 0.00  5.0% news.announce.newgroups 
>  18 190000  2265   87%  2449  4264.8    10% 0.03  4.5% comp.lang.c 
>...
> 648  59000   715   80%    37   157.7    43% 0.00  1.4% comp.std.internat 

Even comp.std.internat has a readership of roughly 59000 people!  I bet
comp.software.internat would reach far more people than the existing
mailing lists.

Alain continues:
>I feel it should not only deal with text but with text strings and cultural
>data in general in all aplications involving information technology (including
>traditional data processing and even display panels on fax machines, for
>example; some hardware devices or firmware are also involved in
>sort/search/compare operations; these should not be neglected: methods exist to
>structure data correctly so as being able to use those existing machines
>without even changing the software -- but this is software-related too).

Absolutely.  All of these topics would be welcome in the new forum.
- Dan Kegel (dank@alumni.caltech.edu)

p.s. I'm honored that someone so involved in the i18n scene supports my idea.
Be sure to vote YES on comp.software.internat when the Call for Votes is 
sent out.