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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!rcj
From: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.columbia
Subject: A vote against net.challenger - reasons included
Message-ID: <981@burl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 31-Jan-86 14:22:51 EST
Article-I.D.: burl.981
Posted: Fri Jan 31 14:22:51 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Feb-86 06:18:47 EST
Reply-To: rcj@burl.UUCP (Curtis Jackson)
Organization: AT&T Technologies, Burlington NC
Lines: 33
Xref: watmath net.news.group:4959 net.columbia:1857

I vote against net.challenger for 2 reasons:

1) If you think the sentimental name net.columbia is confusing, imagine the
people looking at net.challenger and thinking that this is a group that was
created to siphon off traffic regarding the Challenger accident.  They won't
even think for a moment that this group is also for general space shuttle
traffic.

2) It is negative thinking (this has been pointed out previously).  The name
net.columbia was chosen to honor the first flagship of a new triumph of the
space age.  I can somewhat see the sentimental nature of wanting to rename
to net.challenger, but consider it from this light:  Why are the people who
died in the Challenger any more heroes than the crew who successfully repaired
the wounded satellite last year?  Why do you have to die to become a hero
(particularly in the U.S.)?  The other 24 crews have taken the same risks as
the folks on the Challenger.  I don't know about you guys, but I would think
(as I think the crew of Challenger would) that I would want the space program
and public thinking to be influenced with as little negatives as possible as
a result of the accident.  Memorials to triumphs are great positive things;
memorials to tragedies (regardless of their cause) are reminders of death
and/or failure.

As someone pointed out earlier, we didn't rename net.aviation to be
net.tenerife and, given another Titanic, we certainly wouldn't rename
net.rec.boats to be net.titanic.  How about net.politics to net.ml_king
or net.kennedy?

'Nuf said, send flames directly to me,
-- 

The MAD Programmer -- 919-228-3313 (Cornet 291)
alias: Curtis Jackson	...![ ihnp4 ulysses cbosgd mgnetp ]!burl!rcj
			...![ ihnp4 cbosgd akgua masscomp ]!clyde!rcj