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From: evan@petfe.UUCP (Evan Marcus)
Newsgroups: net.news.group
Subject: Re: net.bizarre
Message-ID: <475@petfe.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Sep-85 09:33:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: petfe.475
Posted: Tue Sep 10 09:33:17 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Sep-85 06:31:32 EDT
References: <617@bu-cs.UUCP>, <585@magic.UUCP>
Organization: Perkin-Elmer DSG, Tinton Falls, N.J.
Lines: 48

Comments have been made that net.bizarre should be restricted to
the publisher of the Bizarre Gazette and that should be it.

Once again, I disagree.  While the creation of net.bizarre may have
been a mistake, it's here now, and the removal of it will probably 
cause more grief than it's creation.  People now have an outlet (and I
feel a reasonably good one) for creativity and silliness (there is no
net.silly), and as a result, postings of this sort have left the
net.flame area.  Flame has returned to more of what it ought to be:
angry ravings, and unmoderated arguments.  It has lost a lot of its
silliness, and probably a lot of its readers, AND traffic volume.

If bizarre is taken away, first of all, there will be a lot of traffic
(directed here?) asking what happened to it.  It will be short-lived, 
but inevitable.  Also, and more importantly, the traffic will not go
away, but be redirected.  A lot of bizarre traffic has been appearing 
in net.misc already, and so if bizarre is removed, all of its traffic 
will probably wind up there.

Also, when bizarre was started, I don't recall seeing a message to its
users explaining its purpose.  (i.e. the description line)  There was a
long, exceedingly silly discussion about what to put in the group's
description line, but it became so silly that I doubt any of the group's
users took it seriously.  ("Descriptions of odd occurrences...")  Since
the group was started by accident, and then restarted without the
standard discussions, it was never (as far as I know) given a true 
purpose.  I have read net.bizarre since its beginnings, and never seen
any sort of statement of purpose.

Unfortunately, the quality of net.bizarre has diminished a great deal
since its beginnings.  That is truly a shame.  When it started, I would
often catch myself laughing out loud at a large number of the postings.
That doesn't happen too much anymore.  If net.bizarre were just my toy,
I would probably tire of it soon, and stop using it.  (I may.)  I have
not used the net long enough to know if this happens to other users 
or not.  I tend to doubt it.

I get the impression that the net.rulers are treating the net.bizarres
like children.  Maybe you should try to get some opinions from some of
the other users before taking it away?  Maybe we need the creation of
net.silly????????    (half-joke)

--Evan Marcus
-- 
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