Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!wuarchive!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!iuvax!watmath!xenitec!edhew
From: edhew@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Missing Persons Newsgroup
Message-ID: <1989Nov25.064909.320@xenitec.on.ca>
Date: 25 Nov 89 06:49:09 GMT
References: <2232@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <36668@apple.Apple.COM> <2230@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu>
Reply-To: edhew@xenitec.UUCP (Ed Hew)
Followup-To: news.groups
Distribution: news
Organization: XeniTec Consulting Services, Kitchener, ON, Canada
Lines: 39

In article <2230@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu> shoulson@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu (Mark Shoulson) writes:
>(sorry.  I missed the original poster's name) writes:
>
>>I see occasional postings by people trying to locate other people. Why
>>not create a new newsgroup called misc.missing.persons just for this
>>purpose?
>
>I may be missing something, but I don't think this will be very helpful.
>Think about it.  Would you read this group regularly, in the hopes that
>someone out there is looking for you?  Of course not!  The only time you'd
>read it is if you had posted and are waiting for a response (and not even
>then, because your quarry would presumably use e-mail).  The way people
>would try to get in touch with you is to post to newsgroups commonly read
>or which they think you'd read, because *nobody* is going to just read
>endless requests for other people.

Short of patching 'rn' (and everyone elses personal favourite newsreader)
to force you to read this group before you see anything else, I tend
to agree with your comments.

I recently found a university acquaintance whom I had not heard from
for about 18 years simply by noticing one of his postings.  The
proposed existance of misc.missing.persons wouldn't have hastened
this event one iota for the same reason that soc.net-people doesn't
live in my .newsrc either.  At close to 9 megs per day and still
growing madly, no one I know reads everything.   YANG (Yet Another
News Group) isn't likely to change that a whole lot.

>Anyone follow me?  Does this make sense?

Perfectly.

>Mark Shoulson:  shoulson@cunixc.cc.columbia.edu   shoulson@cunixc.bitnet
>                {...}!rutgers!columbia!cunixc!shoulson

  Ed. A. Hew       Authorized Technical Trainer        Xeni/Con Corporation
  work:  edhew@xenicon.uucp	 -or-	 ..!{uunet!}utai!lsuc!xenicon!edhew
->home:	 edhew@xenitec.on.ca	 -or-	   ..!{uunet!}watmath!xenitec!edhew
  # This posting has absolutely nothing to do with what I do for a living.