[gopher] Re: Gopher wishlist

[Ralph Furmaniak <sugaku@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> It doesn't have to be xml - but I'm figuring that there are a lot of
> opportunities here - we are going through times where much of the
> infrastructure is still being built, so while gopher would be late to
> the party, it doesn't mean it wouldn't be welcome...
>
> Perhaps those in the list have other possible targets to aim for...

Exactly!  Some people think that gopher is just for text files, but gopher is
just a portable directory structure that can refer to any file.  Gopher could
also have its niche in providing navigation.  Gopher supports mail files, but
what if it could also serve up things like source code?
I'll check out the xml ideas.

I guess this is the time and place to speak our ideas.  Gopher is a way to
distribute information, so I was thinking about a way that it could all be
organised, before it grows too much.  How about if each directory (maybe files
as well) has an attribute that tells the category of the information (like the
categories on search engines).  You can then have some bots going around and
putting these sites into categories that can be accessed like this, or through
a search.  "unlabeled" gophers can then be inducted into a category if enough
resources in that category reference it.  Each resource can then be rated by
how many other resources (overall or in that category) link to it.

This would of course be too much for a single gopher to do, but thanks to the
magic gopher, each category can be administered by a different server.  A
server could volunteer to host a specific category and then goes about looking
through gophers.  If it finds a resource that belongs in a different category,
it can send it to the server hosting that category.  Full-text searches could
be implemented.

Gopher has the capabilities of anonymous ftp (which it was a solution to), and
can potentially do everything that napster does.  Although, we should be
careful in this respect, for if people make such a gopher file-sharing
program, then people would go to it, gopher would be presented in the media as
just this, mpaa looks to sue somebody, all respectable institutions forsake
gopher.  Actually this is quite unlikely to happen and I might just be
thinking this because I've been trying to finish some strong danish blue
cheese before it expires. Caveat emptor!