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From: werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (Werner Uhrig)
Newsgroups: net.mail,net.news
Subject: Re: FidoNET Newsletter
Message-ID: <4171@ut-ngp.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 19-Oct-86 13:31:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.4171
Posted: Sun Oct 19 13:31:42 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Oct-86 06:33:14 EDT
References: <1945@well.UUCP> <768@hplabsc.UUCP>
Organization: UTexas Computation Center, Austin, Texas
Lines: 49
Xref: watmath net.mail:2026 net.news:5286
Summary: requiring 200 votes?  that's a new one (but debatable).

In article <768@hplabsc.UUCP>, taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (Dave Taylor) writes:
> appropriate distribution mechanism for this sort of thing is a MAILING LIST,
> suitably advertised on the net.  It is *NOT* appropriate, I feel, to 
> distribute this via Usenet (not to mention the groups selected for
> cross-posting).
> 
> If the demand reaches sufficient levels (200+) then perhaps we can discuss 
> making it a newsgroup, or a part of another group, but in the meantime I'd 
> like to see the postings stop.

while I agree with Dave that this group is not the right place to continue
posting it I find the requirement for 200 votes a bit unreasonable.  I do not
recall that it EVER took anything like this number to establish ANY of the
groups that I know of.  However, it may well be the time to start such a
requirement (but then let's do it for ALL existing groups).

In general, I'd like to see new groups be able to get some exposure before
deciding if they should be news or mail-groups.  I assume here, that many of
us do scan a lot of news-groups (especially new ones) occasionally, simply
to form an opinion and get an idea what it's all about, where we'd *NEVER* be
even tempted to subscribe to it as a mail-group and, therefore, never get a
chance to find out what we are missing.

The case in question seems to me to be the perfect case for mod.mag or a
sub-group thereof.  The volume certainly seems negligable and the contents
is after all a (moderated?) newsletter, with volume and issue numbers - the
works (I don't know about the 'advertising' though; I'd want to see a few
more issues before I form a definite opinion)

I am not disinclined to create a net-wide concensus to require certain
minimum readership across a minimum number of sites which should be required
for distribution, but let's do this systematically and not apply this to
new groups only, but also to existing ones.  Otherwise we create the well
known situation where the establishment makes the rules in a way that will
keep new-comers (and potential competitors for resources) out in the cold.
Given that this net is about information, I'd like to see information made
available to as many as possible as conveniently as possible and to avoid
the situation where new ideas and data is prevented from spreading and thus
the "critical mass" of interested people can never come together to "justify"
a news-group.

Maybe, we should create a priority-list of interest-areas which we'd like
to carry information about on this net.  I'd expect that anything having to do
with computers and electronic communications should be rather high on the
list and require fewer readers to justify distribution as a news-group,
than, for example, groups dealing with the occult, religion, sports.... 
(whatever, insert your own favorite hit-list here).

---Werner	"the header should show a mail-path to my IN-box..."