Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!chuq
From: chuq@Apple.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: FSFnet, Otherrealms, and other electronic magazines...
Message-ID: <37052@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 7 Dec 89 00:02:52 GMT
References: <1989Dec6.100342.5982@sssab.se> <37044@apple.Apple.COM> <1234@umigw.MIAMI.EDU>
Organization: Life is just a Fantasy novel played for keeps
Lines: 59

aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg) writes:

>Why can't it be deleted? Surely that one message could've gone to
>rec.mag?

Why should it? It's not dead, although you'd like it to be.

>rec.mag itself averages about a message a week, since I stopped posting
>magazine summaries/indices to it. (The last two days it's had alot
>of traffic, 'cause my Greenpeace articles have been cross-posted to it).

Rec.mag also has a different charter than either rec.mag.otherrealms or
rec.mag.fsfnet. Since comp.edu has a fairly low traffic volume, why don't we
put it into rec.mag as well?

>rec.mag.otherrealms has a bit more traffic, and the moderator is still
>alive. Certainly it has readership. But I didn't suggest that it be
>deleted now, did I?

You're suggesting that groups with low numbers of postings (irrespective of
audience or content) be consolidate. You can't blame me for looking out for 
my interests. What you're recommending isn't thought out and sets precedents
I don't like -- what's to keep someone later from suggesting the same for my
group?  Nothing.

>With the continuing growth of newsgroups on USENET, I suggest that there
>has to be a mechanism for removing outdated groups. rec.mag.fsfnet
>is an ideal candidate for removal.

Well, I strongly disagree. The proposal doesn't understand the charter of
rec.mag, or the charter of rec.mag.all (which are very different, I might
add. And since I wrote both, I probably have some knowledge on this). I also
think it's *stupid* to consider combining viable groups together just
because of some vague sense of esthetics (a generally unppula esthetic
sense, I might add, since folks have been trying to  get the network to do
something about deleting obsolete groups for as many years as I've been on
USENET -- to massive yawns).

There's no reason to kill off rec.mag.fsfnet. It's alive and well -- you
shouldn't make the mistake of defining 'quanity' as the same as quality. The
whole purpose of rec.mag.all was to try to create an environment where we
could try to turn around the "more postings is better" mentality of USENET
that contributes so heavily to the signal/noise ratios everyone hates. So
why are we now looking at encouraging high signal/noise ratios? If I started
posting a hundred stupid messages a week to these groups to get the volume
up, would it be a better group? No. But it'd probably stop this kind of
discussion.

Which says more about why this is a dumb idea than anything.

-- 

Chuq Von Rospach   <+>   chuq@apple.com   <+>   [This is myself speaking]

When it comes to matters ourside your specialties, you are consistently and
brilliantly stupid [....] with respect to matters you haven't studied and
have had no experience basing your opinions on casual gossip [....] and
plain misinformation -- unsuspected because you haven't attempted to verify it.
	-- Robert Heinlein to J.W. Campbell, Jr. 1941