This 4th AMAST digest collects the comments received between 30.08.94 and
12.09.94 on the proposal for a new, permanent AMAST list.
 
The comments are presented in the chronological order of their arrival.
 
This digest is distributed to the subscribers of the list amast@cs.utwente.nl,
as well as to those who asked for it by a request to amast-info@cs.utwente.nl.
 
I look forward to receiving further comments; if you have some, please send
them to the following address:
                               amast@cs.utwente.nl
 
They will be included in the next digest, which is expected to be distributed
on Monday 26 September 1994.
 
Best regards,
             Pippo
                          ______________________
                          STATISTICS -- 12.09.94
                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The current statistics about subscriptions and no. of people contributing
comments are as follows:
 
(A)  42 contributed comments (6 twice, 3 thrice),
(B) 252 subscribed (12 with the ToC-only option, 3 to the newsletter only)
(C)   6 sent a request to amast-info, without subscribing to amast-request,
(D)  21 unsubscribed explicitly.
 
[beginning of 3nd AMAST Digest] ===============================================
____________

Peter D Mosses:

Perhaps the URL info could be given (more concisely) near the beginning
of the ToC-only version.
____________

Laks V.S. Lakshmanan:

Everything looks good. It'd be better if the meeting notices, CFPs, job
postings etc. could be presented in shorter form with just the bare
essentials, together with pointers to full details. This way it would be
easier to to take care of the concerns of people about the length of the
newsletter. I strongly feel this would improve the quality and usefulness
of the newsletter substantially.
____________

Vaughan Pratt:

Just a quick remark on Roland Backhouse's position:
 
        I am all for passive information services (the receiver of the
        information has to take action to obtain the information) but
        very much against active information services (services where
        the receiver passively receives information) in particular
        where the receiver has no control on the *volume* of
        information that is received.
 
My own preference is to allow a modest volume of high quality active
(in Roland's sense) information through, and to have the rest
accessible via an suitable database query language, having at least
SQL's capabilities combined with an efficient implementation (responses
on the order of seconds rather than minutes, ideally).  That way one
can keep up with the world without forever having to come up with
SQL-level questions serving that function.
 
Usenet newsgroups *can* become a major timesink.  A couple of years ago
I blew a whole month just reading and posting to Usenet, but this
wasn't how I wanted to spend the rest of my life!  Now I briefly glance
at at most 15-20 Usenet newsgroups (that's not all that many, nowadays
you may have to search 3-4 newsgroups to answer just one area-specific
question).  I do this 2-4 times a week, sometimes searching for
keywords bearing on either a specific question I need answered or a
topic I've become interested in (e.g. while writing a paper or after
buying a toy), sometimes scanning the list of subjects to find out
what's new and get a sense of what people currently care about, and
sometimes posting my own questions.  I occasionally answer questions,
usually directly to the questioner as I find that otherwise I spend
longer than I can afford tuning the answer for public consumption.
 
When SQL is extended to the point of including "What's new this week
that I want to know?" in its language, we will be able to drop the
distinction between active and passive information.  Meanwhile current
technology is too far from this utopia for us not to depend on *some*
amount of active information arriving in a suitably filtered and
packaged form.
 
For each of AMAST's functions, it should be understood where in the
active-passive spectrum that function should sit.  A newsletter is
intrinsically active, calling for agressive filtering leading to low
volume and high quality, with neither too many type I or type II errors
(improper acceptances or improper rejections).
 
Items with time value (announcements and calls for papers) are ideal
candidates for inclusion in a newsletter, but here there is a risk of
redundancy: many of us are on enough newsgroups to ensure that we see
most announcements relevant to our interests.
 
My inclination is to just do it, and solve the AMAST newsletter
identity crisis when the situation becomes clearer.
____________

Tim Porter:

I am happy with the AMAST newsletter format,
____________

Jenny Harvey:

As there is a latex to html converter, and a latex
to ascii converter, it would probably be profitable
for most contributions to the newsletter to be
submitted in latex, rather than have everyone using
different formats. From the latex then, html or
ascii could be produced, according to the intended
purpose. For the www pages, it is unlikely that people
would want links in the individual submissions - it
would be up to the editor to provide contents and
overview pages which point to the individual submissions.
____________

Mike Barnett:

The newsletter is very nice. I think it will be very easy for people
to look at the things they want without being swamped by all of the rest.