Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu!karl From: karl@cheops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: Results of sci.aquaria vote Message-ID: Date: 22 Nov 89 18:45:33 GMT References: <5968@unix.SRI.COM> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Organization: Ohio State Computer Science Lines: 60 me: *I don't hear much complaint about [my choice of newgroups to honor]; *the once or twice someone has questioned my choice, I've explained *my decision and the questioner has walked away apparently satisfied. maslak@unix.sri.com writes: So, what would happen if they weren't satisfied, Karl? It's that scenario I'm concerned about, I guess. The problems with USENET don't seem to come up when everyone is in happy harmony, they come up when one or a few people are "bucking the trend." Then we'd argue it out, and hopefully come to an agreement. Eventually, since I'm the newsadmin here, what I say goes. One could consider it something of a dictatorship; but I like to think that the dictatorship is advised, and therefore benevolent. When the subject of vmsnet.* came up, I posted something to osu.groups to ask what other opinion was out there. No one answered, so I haven't bothered to carry them. If someone wanted them, I'd probably carry them, even though I am personally disinclined. But choosing newsgroups, in the absence of either clearly established workgroup consensus or employer guidelines? How do your "experience and skill" enter into it? Several ways. I've been doing this sort of thing for quite a while, and I think I've got a reasonable feel for what "makes sense" in the area of newsgroup hierarchies. sci.aquaria didn't make sense, rec.org.sca did, comp.women didn't but comp.society.women was a reasonable compromise. Excessive political maneuvering on any side of an issue is an indication to me that something has gone wrong. As a result, I ignore certain classes of argument. The classes are pretty fuzzily defined, of course. But I ignored (most of) the arguments over sci.aquaria (I didn't post anything until after the voting was over), comp.women (until rather late in the game), and the current vmsnet.* -vs- comp.os.vms.* (I haven't said a word). Some of the newsgroups which get created, especially in alt, give me the willies for how I'd explain them to my superiors, should they happen to take notice. They have taken such notice, occasionally. (That is, the faculty around here have; they're not exactly my superiors, but you can bet I'm not interested in having arguments with them unless there's darn good reason.) That's the primary reason for having ignored, e.g., alt.peeves, alt.stupidity, and alt.sex.[all subgroups]. I know how the news works in this installation, and I know the details of, for example, how much disc I've got to spend on news and how much new newsgroups are going to cost me in additional filesystem space. That's another reason for ignoring certain alt groups (utterly pointless flaming) and for expiring everything under alt in 5 days or less. I haven't actually rmgroup'd alt.flame itself just yet, but it'll be a target pretty soon. I may be hammering on alt too much, perhaps, but alt makes my point the best. The same ideas apply elsewhere. --Karl