Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!agate!eos!pioneer.arc.nasa.gov!chguest From: chguest@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Ugh) Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions Subject: Do *YOU* want to be able to ask questions here? Some say NO. Keywords: Net Anarchy in the hands of the elite Message-ID: <4546@eos.UUCP> Date: 2 Aug 89 05:47:11 GMT Sender: news@eos.UUCP Reply-To: chguest@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (UGH) Followup-To: ba.news.group ca.news.group news.newusers.questions Distribution: usa Lines: 59 The following articles were culled from the ba.news.group and the ca.news.group newsgroups. These groups are where some of the sysadmins and newsadmins discuss the future of groups on the net. This may also be happening in other local control newsgroups. If you want to continue receiving this newsgroup then it might be in your intrest to take action and speak to your newsadmin or sysadmin. >From: csg@pyramid.pyramid.com (Carl S. Gutekunst) The recently voted-on/created news.newusers.questions is, IMHO, the most perfect example of a topic that does *not* belong in a newsgroup that I have ever seen. It has become an instant cesspool of trivial questions followed by a flood of repetitive (and frequently wrong) answers. All those questions that we provided other channels for (news.announce.newusers, comp.archive, comp.mail, et al), or told people to go ask their local sysadm, are now flowing around the world. Anyone for net.anarchy? Forget the voting process; it's a silly exercise in futility. I plan to nuke this group here; anyone care to join me? >From: gam@uts.amdahl.com (Gordon Moffett) I just took a look at news.newusers.questions; Carl's right, what a mistake this was! Clearly a defect of the "democratic" process .... It's outta here, too. Gordon A. Moffett gam@uts.amdahl.com +1 408 746-8287 {ames,sun,uunet,decwrl}!amdahl!gam >From: jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) We news admin types get to accept our share of the blame. When you see a bunch of extremely basic questions from a new user, that user is innocent; the administrator is at fault for allowing a totally ignorant user to make a fool of himself in public. And then you get to see the "experienced" users answer questions about what K does in vnews by describing what K does in rn. The group could still be turned into something useful. Simply don't forward the group across organizational lines (add !news.newusers.questions to sys lines that go to sites outside your organization, and ask your newsfeeds to do the same). Then if a user at Enormous University has a question the question stays on the university's machines, ditto for companies. It's then possible to get net-wide informative articles onto the group by means of crossposting (for example, news.announce.newusers articles). Users at all sites can still ask their questions there, they simply aren't forwarded all over the net. -- Joe Buck jbuck@epimass.epi.com, uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck >From: epsilon@wet.UUCP (Eric P. Scott) No experiment is a complete failure--it can always serve as a bad example. "I told you so!" (I voted so...) We carry news.all as a matter of policy. We would, of course, honor a global rmgroup... -=EPS=-