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From: alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: .aquaria
Message-ID: <2688@cpoint.UUCP>
Date: 18 Oct 89 14:48:55 GMT
References: <20983@gryphon.COM> <4732@ncar.ucar.edu>
Reply-To: alien@cpoint.UUCP (Alien Wells)
Organization: Clearpoint Research Corp., Hopkinton Mass.
Lines: 60

In article <4732@ncar.ucar.edu> woods@handies.UCAR.EDU (Greg Woods) writes:
>Now that the B.S. about technical
>aspects of the hobby and other smokescreens are cleared away we can go
>to work on the heart of the matter. ... Now that we know this
>is all there is to it, I urge EVERYONE to vote NO on sci.aquaria.

Why am I beginning to wonder why I bother posting?  There are a LOT of reasons
why some people want .aquaria in sci.  Picking one of them, flaming it, and
calling everything else 'BS' and 'smokescreens' is acting far more self-serving
than you even accusing Richard of being.

<soapbox on>

My MAJOR reason for wanting sci. and opposing rec. is that I BELIEVE that a
sci. category will help DETER ASSHOLE FLAMERS LIKE YOU from entering the 
group.  The major counter argument is 'rec. is where hobbies are SUPPOSED to
be, and so what if you get flooded by drek, that's what hobby groups are FOR'.

My SECONDARY reason for wanting sci. is that Europeans ARE the state of the
art in aquaria, and I want to learn from them.  The counter arguments are
'so what, Europeans don't want rec stuff, and that's what WE think you are'
and 'distribution of rec. may have improved recently to Europe'.

The MAJOR counterargument AGAINST sci. is 'sci. is meant for serious 
discussions of scientists about scientific research.  The counter arguments
are 'sci. already contains lots of things like sci.military, sci.skeptic,
sci.space.shuttle, etc that don't have any more justification than 
sci.aquaria to the namespace', and 'even the established sci groups don't
live up to the lofty charter that people are trying to measure .aquaria by'.

The SECONDARY counterargument against sci. is 'fish keeping is a hobby, just
like other hobbies, and the existence of such things as rec.pets makets it
obvious where to put the group'.  The counter argument is 'aquaria keepers
are much more into the ecology and environment than pet keepers, it really
isn't the same thing'.

Of course, all of these arguments and counter-arguments can be followed in
endless flame-threads, and each individual will have different priorities
associated with them, but the above list contains basically ALL of the
arguments, pro and con, that have come out.  There has not been anything 
new in quite a while.  Even the wider distribution of sci. was discussed
openly from the beginning, even though Greg's inflammatory posting makes it 
look like a conspiracy that he has just unveiled.

Since it is clear that no-one has anything else to say, what does it serve us
to twiddle our thumbs watching the flame-mongers try to raise everyone's
tempers.  Just look at the above list of arguments, make up your mind, and
vote.  If there is someone out there who really hasn't made up his mind and
wants to see some more discussion to help, I'll be more than willing to do
all I can - but I don't see any reason to pamper pyromaniacs who haven't
emptied their napalm cannisters yet.

Everyone's decided, let's just vote.  Tantrums like 'if the vote doesn't go
my way, I'll try to get the vote invalidated' just make me think that 
news.groups ought to be moderated.
-- 
--------|	You've got the political savvy
Alien   |		of a hangnail.
--------|   					- John Meneghini
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