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From: howells@krypton.arc.nasa.gov (John Howells)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: preliminary call for disussion: rec.arts.movies subgroups
Message-ID: <4337@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 22 Dec 89 20:57:11 GMT
References: <49987@bbn.COM> <2990@cbnewsj.ATT.COM>
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Organization: NASA-Ames Research Center
Lines: 58

In article <49987@bbn.COM>, rshapiro@BBN.COM (Richard Shapiro) writes...
< 
<As a movie lover who's found it necessary to unsubscribe to
<rec.arts.movies, I'd like to gauge Net opinion about spinning off one
<(or more) subgroups.  The problem with rec.arts.movies is well known,
<I think: a *very* high count of articles, the great majority of which
<are about a handful of movies which happen to be popular that week or
<month. Using Kill files or typing N isn't even remotely a practical
<solution -- other kinds of articles are thoroughly buried in the
<avalanche of stuff about Batman or Back to the Future or whatever.
<Most of the rest of the articles fall in the "list all the movies with
<X" category. 
< 

I agree. This is very annoying.

<What this means is that those of us with a broader and perhaps
<slightly more serious interest in the whole history of cinema are
<unable to use this group AT ALL, and there's really no hope of that
<situation ever changing. It seems clear to me that, if there is
<interest in a different kind of forum for movie talk, we'll need a new
<group to conduct it in. This pre-call-for-votes is an attempt to find
<out if there is any such interest.
< 

I wouldn't say r.a.m is useless. Those types of discussions do occur, but
it is hard to sustain because of the high volume of junk articles.

<As one concrete proposal (but only one), let me suggest r.a.m.classic
<which would be exclusively for the (serious) discussion of older
<Hollywood movies (not necessarily "great" movies). This group would
<have to be moderated, I think.
< 
<Is there any interest in such a group? How about a different subgroup?
<I just want to have a usable forum for talking about cinema in a more
<serious and more historical way than is possible on r.a.m. Any such
<forum is better than none at all.
< 
<Opinions?

I think this is basically a good idea. I have no problem with
r.a.m.classic. How about these?:

r.a.m.noir - for the discussion of Film Noir. Not necessarily limited to
1940s or 1950s.

r.a.m.foreign - foreign films, new and old. No Japanese monster movies,
please.

r.a.m.cult - for discussion of cult movies (there is already
alt.cult-movies, though). 

r.a.m.rosebud - for discussion of Citizen Kane (just a joke... :-)

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