Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!snorkelwacker!think!samsung!caesar.cs.montana.edu!ogicse!blake!maddox
From: maddox@blake.acs.washington.edu (Tom Maddox)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: CALL FOR DISCUSSION:  SCI.VIRTUAL-WORLDS
Message-ID: <4828@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Date: 9 Dec 89 00:08:44 GMT
References: <1989Dec5.173743.651@mentor.com> <3186@com50.C2S.MN.ORG>
Reply-To: maddox@blake.acs.washington.edu (Tom Maddox)
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Lines: 26

In article <3186@com50.C2S.MN.ORG> craig@com2serv.c2s.mn.org (Craig S. Wilson) writes:
>Just to correct a possible misconception, alt.cyberspace was created
>to discuss the technical aspects of cyberspace and virtual realities 
>without lifestyle overtones.  Alt.cyberpunk exists to discuss more 
>fictional (predominately Gibsonian) aspects of these subjects.

>I see these groups continuing after the creation of an "official"
>newsgroup for cyberspace and VR technologies.

	I think this is an instance of revisionist net.history.  
Alt.cyberpunk, alt.cyberspace, alt.cyberpunk.tech, and whatever other 
alt.cyber* groups that might spring up in the next few minutes are the 
products of someone's ability to issue the command creating an alt group,
not of some supposed consensus about the nature of the group; there was 
and is little in the way of consensus concerning what belongs where or what
postings are appropriate to what groups. 

	Sci.virtual-worlds would probably have the effect of siphoning
off the various technical (or pseudo-technical) discussions about 
implmentation of cyberspace from the alt groups; alt.cyberpunk might
or might not survive.  

	Or to put it another way, think of the formation and
prosperity or adversity of newsgroups as the net's evolutionary
history--i.e., the whole thing's part intention, part accident, and a
hell of a lot of rough justice, *particularly* in the alt.world.