Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!xanth!mcnc!uvaarpa!hb
From: hb@uvaarpa.virginia.edu (Hank Bovis)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Proposed Guidelines Change
Summary: Are newsgroups _really_ like Constitutional Amendments?
Message-ID: <1599@uvaarpa.virginia.edu>
Date: 22 Nov 89 21:27:16 GMT
References: <1989Nov10.045531.4549@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu> <36393@apple.Apple.COM> <1626@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <2562D3D9.16489@ateng.com> <5289@ncar.ucar.edu> <1530@uvaarpa.virginia.edu> <25683F82.25276@ateng.com> <429@scorn.sco.COM>
Reply-To: hb@Virginia.EDU (Hank Bovis)
Organization: University of Virginia, Charlottesville
Lines: 28

In article <429@scorn.sco.COM> davidbe@sco.COM (The Cat in the Hat) writes:
>... we (I, anyway) *want* it to
>be difficult to create a new newsgroup.
>
>The net isn't going to get too much bigger in the future, even if it does,
>it's irrelevant.  Instead more people are going to be participating in trying 
>to control it (hah! as if such a thing could be done...).  And when that 
>happens, a 2/3rds for newsgroup creation isn't such a stiff price to pay. 

This the-masses-are-dangerous reasoning may be appropriate for amending
the U.S. Constitution, but I think its relevance to USENET group cration
is questionable.  I would prefer to see _more_ flexibility, not less.
I think it should be easier to create _and_ to remove newsgroups, in
response to public will, and with less intervention from site admins.

I mean, don't site admins have better things to do with their time than
wage long flame wars in news.groups?  Why not change the news software
to allow groups to propagate according to reader demand, instead of
at the pleasure of site admins?  Why not use some sort of Arbitron-like
stats to measure interest instead of relying on the whims of only those
with the intestinal fortitude to wade through the flammage in
news.froups?

Just a thought...

hb
-- 
Hank Bovis (hb@Virginia.EDU, hb@Virginia.BITNET)