Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site peora.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!akguc!codas!peora!jer From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) Newsgroups: net.news.group Subject: Re: Silly, silly us: net.columbia Message-ID: <1975@peora.UUCP> Date: Thu, 20-Feb-86 12:02:02 EST Article-I.D.: peora.1975 Posted: Thu Feb 20 12:02:02 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 21-Feb-86 07:29:37 EST References: <19000004@hpfcla.UUCP> <628@riccb.UUCP> Organization: Concurrent Computer Corporation, Orlando, Fl Lines: 43 > > Sigh. A shuttle blows up, and in a week, half the traffic in the > > appropriate newsgroup is on what to call the newsgroup. Sigh. > > Does that surprise you? It was because the newsgroup had a bad name > to begin with... > I and others suggested several times long before the Challenger accident > that the name should be net.space.shuttle. This movement never got enough > support to accomplish the name change. I appeal now, on rational grounds, > to all readers of net.columbia who are irritated by the flood of postings > of the "net.challenger" type ... The discussions would have gone on anyway; people would have said, "I think it is a fitting memorial to rename net.space.shuttle to net.space.challenger" and all the postings would have occurred. Rather, it is the handful of people who are dissatisfied with the name who provoked a lot of the annoying discussion; it is one thing to have to go through myriads of votes for and against renaming the newsgroup, but quite another to have the Challenger tragedy exploited by a few who want to foist their ideas of what the newsgroup should be named on those who were participating in it long before the tragedy, and who were quite satisfied with the name. The arguments over the name are quite fundamentally the same as the arguments for and against the colonization of space. Naming the newsgroup "net.columbia" involves a matter of sentiment and "nostalgia," as well as an awareness and appreciation of etymology -- the question ``why is the newsgroup called net.columbia'' being an essentially etymological question in itself. Some people want to colonize space; some people want to stay here. Some people want to call it net.challenger; some want to call it net.space.shuttle. You have to base your decision on what the people who use the newsgroup want; and it is very evident that the people who post the "change the newsgroup name" requests are not the same ones who post the majority of the discussion in net.columbia. We've been over and over this issue before. There's nothing wrong with the name. Someone who can speak English, with all its idiosyncrasies, certainly should be able to deal with an idiosyncratic newsgroup name. It's what makes the language interesting. -- UUCP: Ofc: jer@peora.UUCP Home: jer@jerpc.CCUR.UUCP CCUR DNS: peora, pesnta US Mail: MS 795; CONCURRENT Computer Corp. SDC; (A Perkin-Elmer Company) 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642