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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!aecom!naftoli
From: naftoli@aecom.UUCP (Robert Berlinger)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: Re: creating a new news group
Message-ID: <321@aecom.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 19-Dec-83 11:21:25 EST
Article-I.D.: aecom.321
Posted: Mon Dec 19 11:21:25 1983
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Dec-83 01:15:19 EST
References: <1562@utcsstat.UUCP>
Organization: Albert Einstein Coll. of Med., NY
Lines: 32

>> The people who really lose are the people who are not interested in news
>> about foo which is cluttering up newsgroup bar. I would expect that there
>> should be lots of articles which go "i hate foo, get it out of newsgroup
>> bar". It ought to be the people who like foo who have to be shown that
>> enough people dislike it to warrent a new newsgroup. But I do not think
>> that this is happening.

You are absolutely right.  It think that most of the concern over
new newsgroups is that there are so many unused ones already. 3
people decide to create a newsgroup, start a post-a-thon where
everyone they know is blackmailed into sending a supporting post,
and then create the group which gets 3 articles all of which are
'you may now post to this group' or 'test'.

Of course this isn't the case with all or even most of the
newsgroups created.  It's just that the *Felix Unger* syndrome
seems to hit some of us, and creating new newsgroups is analogous
to leaving your shirt tails out. And it's just one more group to
unsubscribe to.  And more newsgroups (unfortunately) make
readnews work harder as it must skim through all the things you
don't want to read.  

Even with all these problems, a more organized and concise
network hierarchy, albeit larger seems *neater* to me than
cluttering the groups we already have.  I think that a larger
quantity of well defined and uncluttered newsgroups is better
than a smaller quantity of mush.
-- 


		Robert Berlinger
		...{philabs,cucard}!aecom!naftoli