Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!decwrl!ucbvax!brahms!weemba From: weemba@brahms.UUCP Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.news.adm Subject: Re: In praise of net.biz--I mean net.{rumor,suicide} Message-ID: <14159@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Date: Thu, 5-Jun-86 03:03:55 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.14159 Posted: Thu Jun 5 03:03:55 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 5-Jun-86 20:37:03 EDT References: <2341@seismo.CSS.GOV> <1001@k.cs.cmu.edu> <14076@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <14133@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <345@andromeda.RUTGERS.EDU> Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: weemba@brahms.UUCP (Matthew P. Wiener) Followup-To: net.news.group Distribution: na Organization: University of California, Berkeley Lines: 83 Summary: yet another strawman Xref: decwrl net.news.group:5258 net.news.adm:784 I am directing followups back to net.news.group--I have no idea what Mr Rat was trying to prove by cross posting. > On the assumption that .news.group will have missed the >original, I have included most of it. [W RAT] It *was* posted to net.news.group. You could have just as easily referred net.news.adm readers over--I suspect the one readership is mostly a subset of the other anyway. Please don't overquote, Mr Rat, not when there's too much volume as it is, and then you proceed to attack strawmen *despite* your heavy quoting! Why was this posted to net.news.adm anyway? To warn all the net.administrators that some bizarroid is trying to take over the net? If you read what I wrote, there was no such nonsense. I already know you think I'm a "PINHEAD", Mr Rat, but please stick to what I say in the future instead of your ersatz vision of me, and I'll see little need to call you idiotic names in return. No need to be embarrassed, of course, lots of people have flamed me for things I've never come close to saying. >What would _your_ reaction be if the signal-to-noise in your >favorite groups suddenly began to approach zero because some >bizzaroid decided that it would be cute to hold cross-country >flaming contests ? Since when have I *advocated* cross-country flaming contests? (As opposed to *participated*.) I was defending the existing bizarreness in net.{rumor,suicide}, which bizarreness I believe is the sole reason that they are being moved into talkgroups, since these groups *fail* the other criteria that have been proposed. net.suicide is particularly low in volume. Oh by the way. There are no flaming contests in net.suicide, first appearances to the contrary. Just lots of black humor. I'm a Becketthead, if you don't mind. > I don't realy care about .suicide; I've always >felt it was kind of a waste, but I OBJECT to this sort of thing >in groups that have always held to their charter. Is this a self-contradiction? You don't care about one group, and then tell us you object anyway? I'm confused. No one has ever told me just what qualifies as an acceptable rumor--Andy Beals and I have discussed this via e-mail many many times before. :-) Frankly, I find net.rumor rather informative at times, with all sorts of random discussions from CD vs records to exploding capacitors to great facts about John Tyler to strange song lyrics etc etc. > [...] MUST you >turn everything into net.bizzare ? This sort of behavior makes >it difficult to justify carrying any news. Where the hell, Mr Rat, did I ever advocate turning everything into net.bizarre? Indeed, just what is the title of this very article? The one that I originally posted? I'll save you the trouble of restarting this article: Subject: Re: In praise of net.biz--I mean net.{rumor,suicide} ^^^^^ ^^^^^^^ You have contributed a random rumor to net.rumor recently, so I don't think you have complaints about that group being bizarre. The point is not to invade the whole network, but to confine bizarreness to known and agreed upon places. I never saw net.bizarre, only mail.bizarre. Comparing that with net.{rumor,suicide}, which two I find far more entertaining, I asserted that having a charter that one has to keep up a pretense of following seems to have a salubrious effect on the bizarreness. This essentially was all I said in my previous posting. If you read net.test, you'll have seen that I've contributed ONE article total in the past month or two--asking that it NOT be turned into a bizarre group. True, my article was a bit bizarre, but I meant what I said. In particular, I've refused to join up with the other well-known bizarroids over there, and I would hate to see net.test turned into talk.test. OK? ucbvax!brahms!weemba Matthew P Wiener/UCB Math Dept/Berkeley CA 94720