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From: sandell@ils.nwu.edu (Greg Sandell)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: reality and computer sound [was WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THIS NEWSGROUP?]
Keywords: question for discussion
Message-ID: <2271@anaxagoras.ils.nwu.edu>
Date: 25 Jun 91 18:12:11 GMT
References: <1991Jun14.164758.23557@agate.berkeley.edu> <152033.16945@timbuk.cray.com> <1299@artsnet.UUCP> <4188@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP>
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Reply-To: sandell@ils.nwu.edu (Greg Sandell)
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
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In article <4188@ssc-bee.ssc-vax.UUCP>, carroll@ssc-vax (Jeff Carroll) writes:
> 
> I was distressed by this thread when it appeared; I was afraid I'd have
> to go to me Friendly Neighborhood University and buy an MMus in order to
> be allowed to continue to read this group.

	[ in summary, complains about the "keep comp.music pure" movement, makes
	  innuendos about elitism... ]

I have noticed a common thread to all the postings complaining
about topics being excluded from comp.music.  None of them 
mention rec.music.synth.

Some questions:  do you recognize rec.music.synth as a viable place
to talk about synthesizers?  Do you think that there is a reason to
have a second group to talk about the same subjects?  

If rec.music.synth started filling up with questions about historical
musicology, music education, ethnomusicology and manuscript verification,
wouldn't you complain that it was getting hard to weed through all
the extraneous postings?  Or would you protest against any such 
complaints on the grounds that the arguments were petty, territorial and
elite? (Not that you used these words, but someone else did.)

USENET, everybody knows, provides a variety of very specific topics
of interest to computer users.  Specializing offshoots of groups happens 
all the time on USENET, as I'm sure you know, and people take the trouble 
to do so with a call for votes.  Take a look at how many specialized
groups there are for the Macintosh (I count 11).  Comp.music was
formed, I suspect, to handle the traffic from a certain subset of
rec.music.synth posters which merited having a group of its own.   So 
aren't its readers and contributors justified in complaining about material
appear that looks just like the stuff that is available in another
group?

-- 
Greg Sandell
sandell@ils.nwu.edu