Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!sq!msb
From: msb@sq.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Cross posting to unwanted newsgroups
Message-ID: <1987Oct19.231904.3840@sq.uucp>
Date: Mon, 19-Oct-87 23:19:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: sq.1987Oct19.231904.3840
Posted: Mon Oct 19 23:19:04 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Oct-87 21:02:46 EDT
References: <1651@killer.UUCP> <2700@tekgvs.TEK.COM> <4827@ncoast.UUCP> <1987Oct14.021942.22522@sq.uucp> <30954@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: msb@sq.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Organization: SoftQuad Inc., Toronto
Lines: 34
Checksum: 09076

Chuq Von Rospach (chuq@sun.UUCP) writes:
> Realistically, there is little need to widely spread followups. An riginal
> posting can be spread around to let people know that a conversation has
> started, but they should then decided on a place to finish it. You don't
> carry on a conversation at a party by standing in all four corners of a room
> and yelling at each other, do you?

No, I stand in all four corners of the room at once, and quietly talk to
the people in each of them at the same time.

I will then be heard by precisely all the people who are likely
to be interested in what I am saying.  If the topic is the use of
symbolic algebra in the Beatles' songs, and I make only opening
remarks in the rec.music.beatles corner before inviting that crowd over
to the sci.math.symbolic corner, it doesn't follow that they'll follow.
More likely they'll be put off by the vast volume of symbolic algebra
people jabbering about non-Beatles that they're not interested in.
And vice versa, if I do it the other way.

Chuq's assumption is that a reader will be willing to subscribe to a group
just because there is one interesting discussion there.  But UNsubscribing
is the feature that allows the net to work as well as it does with as large
a volume as it does.  Why try to defeat it when there are better ways to
eliminate improper cross-postings?

Remember, if the reader is already subscribed to all the groups in question,
improper cross-postings are a minor nuisance, as the articles will only be
seen once anyway under any sensible reading interface.  (Thanks, Larry.)

Mark Brader, Toronto		"But I do't have a '' key o my termial."
utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com				   -- Lynn Gold

P.S. I would like to thank you all for apparently agreeing with me
as to which group this topic belongs in!