Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!dmark
From: dmark@cs.Buffalo.EDU (David Mark)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: Charter (Re: Bird watching & rec.birds)
Keywords: birding, bird-watching
Message-ID: <9067@cs.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 7 Aug 89 00:41:04 GMT
References: <8863@cs.Buffalo.EDU> <19260@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU>
Reply-To: dmark@sunybcs.UUCP (David Mark)
Distribution: na
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Geography
Lines: 44

In article <19260@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU> max@ee.cornell.edu  (Max Hauser) writes:
     [some lines deleted]
>
>It's a far deeper violation of net etiquette to name a group misleadingly.
>
>I have asked several times over the last few years why those who strongly
>oppose pet-bird postings do not choose to promote a renaming (for example,
>from rec.birds to rec.birdwatchingWATCHINGdammit) or else relax and stop
>cluttering with complaints the very newsgroup whose clutter they are
>complaining about (!).  I have never, never seen a direct and thoughtful
>response to this suggestion (though I have gotten several responses
>along the witty and compelling lines of "uhh  -- shut up!").
>
>M. Hauser, bird-enthusiast-in-general                 max@ee.cornell.edu

The problem of renaming the group would be three-fold:

1) does the group have enough wild bird enthusiast subscribers to generate
100 votes which I presume would be needed to change the name?

2) could the outdoor bird types agree on a new name?

3) would some bird-keepers vote against the change in order to keep a group
to which they can post parrot problems?

Now if (1) is true, then we are lucky to have the group in the first place.
If the outdoor types keep up the flow of postings at the level they have
generated since I raised the issue, then a minority of captive bird
postings will not bother me or most of the others too much.

Of course, (2) is our problem, too.  I would favor rec.birding, but
birding to some means listing-for-listing's-sake, and a lot of watchers,
conservationists, and amateur ornithologists would not like it.  
rec.birdwatching is altogether the wrong image as far as I am concerned.

What is the procedure for SPLITTING a group into, say, rec.birds.wild
and rec.birds.captive?  Would that be like establishing new ones, and
would each "view" need 100 votes?

To repeat my first statement, as long as there is a decent flow of
outdoor bird topics, a few care and feeding postings are all right with me.

David Mark
dmark@cs.buffalo.edu