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From: taber@pstjtt.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: ****   Call for Bogosity Ratings  --  Creation of Sci.Aquaria   ****
Message-ID: <526@ryn.esg.dec.com>
Date: 13 Oct 89 18:12:32 GMT
Sender: guest@ryn.esg.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 28

OK, so the gauntlet was thrown down, and I picked it up.  We shouldn't 
comment on renaming the fish-fancier's group unless we aquire an idea of 
what (I'm sorry, "WHAT") the group IS.  So I looked into it.  We had 
about 300 articles stashed on our server, and I read 100 (sequential)of them 
and checked the titles of all of them.

There were the standard "This is a test" messages, the usual childish
flames over someone who nominated participants to the "Bandwidth
Waster's Hall of Fame", a number of questions on the subject of "how do
I get started?" and "why did my fish die?", there were the usual number
of way-off-the-subject replies to specific questions, there was a note
that went from books to mexican restaurants to fish.  alt.aquaria is 
("IS") J.random, run-of-the-mill hobby group.  Most of these were before 
the proposal to move to sci, so I assume the contents are reasonably 
unself-conscious.

There was nothing that really separated the group from any other 
reasonably technical hobby group.  It was not discernably different from 
rec.photo or rec.ham-radio, both of which are hobbies that include a 
scientific/technical content but are (properly) in the rec hierarchy.

Now that I'm confident I know WHAT alt.aquaria IS, I feel that I would
have to vote NO if the proposal is to put it in sci.  

                >>>==>PStJTT
			Patrick St. Joseph Teahan Taber

Mail address:  ahhhhh, you don't want to send me mail....