Xref: utzoo alt.aquaria:4166 news.groups:13132 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uwm.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!ark1!dsill From: dsill@ark1.nswc.navy.mil (Dave Sill) Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,news.groups Subject: Re: **** Call for Discussion -- Creation of Sci.Aquaria **** Message-ID: <161@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> Date: 12 Oct 89 02:38:45 GMT References: <2213@cbnewsd.ATT.COM > <3182@quanta.eng.ohio-state.edu > <152@ark1.nswc.navy.mil > <2287@cbnewsd.ATT.COM> <156@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> <2674@cpoint.UUCP> Reply-To: dsill@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Dave Sill) Organization: Naval Surface Warfare Center, Dahlgren, VA Lines: 54 In article <2674@cpoint.UUCP> alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells) writes: >In article <156@ark1.nswc.navy.mil> dsill@relay.nswc.navy.mil (Dave Sill) writes: >> I'll vote for rec.aquariums ... I'm not sure what I'd do with rec.aquaria. >>Right now I'm leaning toward a NO because it's not as obvious as it could be. > >Gee, with friends like this ... aquariums isn't even a WORD! Look it up, Mr. Wells. In my collegiate Webster's, `aquariums' is *preferred* to `aquaria'. Do you deny that the former is more obvious? We've seen several articles mentioning the confusion caused by `aquaria'. How could `aquarium' be misunderstood? >I think that a lot of news.groups people are missing the entire point here. >This is NOT a proposal to create a new group. This IS a proposal to take an >EXISTING group, alt.aquaria, and move it into the mainstream heirarchy. Which I believe has been vehemently opposed on the grounds that placing it in a mainstream domain, without there being a tropical fish hobbyist group elsewhere in the mainstream hierarchy, will either pollute the renamed alt.aquaria with novice questions, confuse folks looking for a hobbyist group, or, most likely, both. >The APPROPRIATE discussion to have here is where should alt.aquaria be put >so it will get more mainstream distribution while keeping its present character. Also appropriate is discussion about the *feasibility* of such a move. I don't think it is for the abovementioned reason of the lack of a mainstream hobbyist newsgroup. >If you DON'T know what alt.aquaria is currently like, what it's character is, >and what sort of people make it up - either subscribe for a while or kindly >leave the discussion to people who care more about the group than flaming. I can't subscribe to alt.aquaria because we don't get alt. I resent the implication that I'm not interested in the topic covered by the group in question and that I'm simply flaming for the hell of it. I know this discussion has dragged on far too long, and contributed toward many people's high-ranking position on the Bandwidth Waster's Hall of Fame (myself included), but I *really* do think it's important that we get it right. The goal is to move alt.aquaria to a mainstream domain. I have no problem with that goal, per se. I don't think it's going to be a successful move until there's a mainstream fish hobbyist group available. Why not propose rec.aquariums now, with a general hobbyist-oriented charter, keeping alt.aquaria for the tech talk? Then later propose moving alt.aquaria to rec.aquariums.tech or sci.aquaria or whatever. Even proposing both groups simultaneously now would be better than trying to simply move alt.aquaria. -- Dave Sill (dsill@relay.nswc.navy.mil)