Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga.games:1030 comp.sys.amiga:64890 news.admin:10495 news.groups:23365 Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!vsi1!zorch!xanthian From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games,comp.sys.amiga,news.admin,news.groups Subject: Whoops: Any NEW sites receiving comp.sys.amiga.games? Summary: "NEW" == on or after about 17 August 1990. Keywords: Blundered, trying again. Message-ID: <1990Sep1.181028.22032@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Date: 1 Sep 90 18:10:28 GMT References: <1990Aug29.132837.13649@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <33400@cup.portal.com> Followup-To: news.groups Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix Lines: 66 thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) writes: >xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) >in <1990Aug29.132837.13649@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> writes: > So tell me, was it all worth the effort? Are there any sites that > actually ADDED comp.sys.amiga.games, after all was said and done? > If so, is connectivity good enough that traffic is arriving there? >The stuff's been arriving at PORTAL for some time. The earliest unexpired >item still online is dated 3-Aug-1990, and the last screenful looks like >the "dump" appended to this response. Thanks, Thad, but not what I was looking for; my fault. I typed "news" when I meant "new" in the subject line, and never noticed. The question I'm trying to have answered is very explicit: did the newgroup control message sent out by Eliot Lear, on or about 17 August 1990, cause ANY sites to add comp.sys.amiga.games to their list of active newsgroups. To date, I have no evidence for an affirmative answer. To recapitulate history a bit and see why the question is of interest: some "nefarious fiend" forged a set of newgroup control messages for various newsgroups back around the turn of the year. Most of these got rather promptly rmgrouped, including comp.sys.amiga.games. However, most sysops, out of sheer self preservation, intercept rmgroup messages for hand application only, and somehow comp.sys.amiga.games was spared by a significant fraction of them, and became a viable, if not well distributed, newsgroup. Enter me. I returned to the net in June after a haitus, and found the new group alive and well, but in need of a "real vote" to make its existance legitimate, and perhaps improve its distribution. After a bit of moral support in the Amiga groups, I undertook and successfully concluded the discussion period, vote, results posting, and wait for objections. Eliot was then kind enough to publish the newgroup control message, and comp.sys.amiga.games became a "real newsgroup", much in the way Pinnocio became a "real boy": one touch of the magic wand. All well and good, except it looks like forging a newgroup message is at least as effective as conducting a discussion and vote. Where are all the NEW sites in response to the correct procedure having been done, albeit a bit tardily? Conducting a discussion and vote is real work, time consuming, unrewarding, and, on the evidence, a waste of time, when forging a newgroup control message take perhaps two minutes, tops, and gets at least as good a distribution for the resulting new newsgroup. Since the sysops determine what groups' newgroup control messages are being respected, anyway, and they do that for forged as well as legitimate newgroup control messages, and since both seem to have exactly the same effect, are the rest of us fooling ourselves that we have any voice in the matter, and should we shift over to the alt method of creating groups, since that seems to be in effect what we have in reality, as opposed to in our guidelines, and save all the bandwidth and bad tempers our present system involves? Just asking, I don't think I'll be conducting any more votes soon with the present result as a guide. Note the followup line; I'm none too keen on sifting any discussion on this out of all the addressed groups. Kent, the man from xanth.