Newsgroups: rec.birds
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!math-cs.kent.edu!redpoll!red
From: red@redpoll.uucp (Richard E. Depew)
Subject: Re: hotlines
Message-ID: <1990Jun3.024643.20136@redpoll.uucp>
Organization: Home
Distribution: na
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 90 02:46:43 GMT

In article <859@fsu.scri.fsu.edu> sandee@fsu.scri.fsu.edu (Daan Sandee)
wrote:
>Posting of RBA hotlines has been discontinued pending creation of a special
>newsgroup - which will take several months, following Usenet rules.
>Please post your comments on this newsgroup...

A week earlier, in article <826@fsu.scri.fsu.edu> Daan, proposing to post
hotline information, wrote:
>... If it works, and
>volume warrants it, we may set up a newsgroup rec.birds.hotlines.

     In the intervening week we saw one large hotline collection,
and 15 individual hotline postings.  There have been no negative
comments posted to the newsgroup about the hotlines.  Why should it be
necessary to discontinue posting them during the discussion of a
proposed new group? 

     Could it be a concern for volume?  Sixteen articles a week hardly
seems to be a terrible burden on the network.  Have you looked at 
comp.sys.ibm.pc recently?  :-)  Granted, it is a large volume compared
to what we have been used to getting in this newsgroup, but it is
certainly pertinent to rec.birds!

     Your convention of including "HOTLINE" in the subject line of
these reports allows any readers who are not interested in the
hotline postings to skip them with the greatest of ease.  It is just
such a convention that has permitted the amicable sharing of this
group between those with INDOOR birds and those who cringe at the
thought (occasional snide comments aside).  :-)

     The guidelines for new group formation don't forbid posting
relevant articles to an existing group... they are meant to determine
if there is enough interest to justify a separate group, and to
determine whether the proposed group has an acceptable name.  The
guidelines also provide great sport for all the kvetchers from other
groups.  The readers of this group are too busy looking for/watching/
feeding/caring for birds to quibble over the guidelines.  :-)

     Thank you for the hotline postings!  Please resume them.  It does
my heart good to be reminded that the birds I see in my backyard rate
rare bird alerts when they wander somewhere else.

Dick Depew
redpoll!red
Munroe Falls, OH
(no, I haven't seen a redpoll since christening this machine... 
 wouldn't you know!)