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From: riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.nlang
Subject: Re: Regional Newsgroups
Message-ID: <1845@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 7-May-85 13:55:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.1845
Posted: Tue May  7 13:55:44 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Jun-85 02:48:20 EDT
References: <928@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>
Organization: U. of Tx. at Houston-in-the-Hills
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Cosmic-Crawdaddy: "Bob"

I see two main problems with this proposal.  One is that the existing
newsgroups under net.nlang are organized around cultures, while the proposed
scheme is geographical.  Net.nlang.africa, for instance, covers
Afro-American topics as well as strictly African ones.  Why have separate
newsgroups for Central America and South America?  Why have a newsgroup for
North America at all?  (It could easily be argued that *every* newsgroup is
a North American newsgroup, in the same sense that "every day is children's
day," as my parents used to tell their kids when we'd complain about the
unfairness of Mothers' and Fathers' Day.)

Secondly, why have newsgroups for any region until people come forward and
express interest in it?  The concern being addressed by this proposal is a
desire to avoid an unwieldy hodge-podge of regional newsgroups, but maybe
the interests of Usenetters are something of a hodge-podge and the newsgroup
structure should reflect that.  Who would have predicted a priori that the
first two such newsgroups would be net.nlang.celts and net.nlang.greek?
Geographically the regions in question don't amount to much on the global
scale, but the interest in them in the Usenet community apparently far
outweighs their geographical importance.

--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
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