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From: reiher@onyx.jpl.nasa.gov (Peter Reiher)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: preliminary call for disussion: rec.arts.movies subgroups
Message-ID: <2451@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov>
Date: 27 Dec 89 16:15:07 GMT
References: <49987@bbn.COM> <32021@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Sender: news@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov
Reply-To: reiher@onyx.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Peter Reiher)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 60

In article <32021@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> dave@cogsci.indiana.edu (David Chalmers) writes:
>In article <49987@bbn.COM> Richard Shapiro <rshapiro@BBN.COM> writes:
>
>>As a movie lover who's found it necessary to unsubscribe to
>>rec.arts.movies, 
. . .
>>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. 
>
>>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.
>
>One trouble with this name might be endless flames over what is "classic" and
>what isn't.  Also, do you really want to exclude more recent movies from the
>broad discussions of cinema in general?

I like the idea of a movie newsgroup that would be limited to serious
discussion of film.  I would prefer that it have no further restrictions on
subject matter.  I don't always read carefully all the articles discussing
technical issues, but I recognize that they are of serious interest to people 
who care about films, and I see no reason to exclude them from such a newsgroup.

I also agree that moderation is a necessity, or the group will collapse under
the onslaught of listers, people wanting to know what a key grip does, and
endless discussions of the latest popular movie.

I think that the proposed name may be a bit inappropriate, for the reasons
suggested and for the general reason that it excludes too much that could be
of serious interest.  How about rec.arts.movies.forum, suggesting a place for
serious, extended discussions of films?  (Or, less fortunately, suggesting
a place for discussions of the film, "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To
the Forum".)

As Evelyn Leeper pointed out, one useful film newsgroup does exist, in 
rec.arts.films.reviews.  But it does not have extended discussions as its
charter.  I think that the most practical solution is either to try to extend
the charter of this group, or to set up a mailing list to test the level of
interest in the Usenet community for serious discussions of film.

>Another idea might be to create rec.arts.movies.current, which would
>be for the discussions of Batman, Back to the Future, etc.  With that huge
>volume out of the way, rec.arts.movies might again become a reasonable
>place.  (Other possible names: r.a.m.new, r.a.m.recent, ...)  Though I
>guess there'd still be "all the movies that ..." discussions to worry
>about.  (Rec.arts.movies.lists, anyone?)

Unfortunately, I don't think this proposal is practical.  Generally, it's
hard to get people with a casual interest to move their discussions to 
sub-groups.  It's the hard core fans who have to leave the main group and
switch to a sub-group.  (My own favorite attempt to clean up rec.arts.movies
would be rec.arts.movies.physics, which would allow all the engineers and
scientists on the net to debate the abuses of physics in the latest popular
science fiction film.)  
			Peter Reiher
			reiher@onyx.jpl.nasa.gov
			. . . cit-vax!elroy!jato!jade!reiher