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From: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Newsgroups: misc.misc,news.admin,news.groups
Subject: Re: Dedication
Message-ID: <24306@gryphon.COM>
Date: 5 Jan 90 18:04:45 GMT
References: <$`J9$$@masalla.fulcrum.bt.co.uk>
Reply-To: richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 54

What is the net for, and why do we use it. This is, without
doubt one of mans old questions. Ever since the discovery
of domain addresses in the French cave paintings was discoverd
it has been concluded that the net was intalled by space aliens
thousnds of years ago and remained dormant until only very
recently.

Ian, I think you're only seeing a small part of the net, and
were in a bad mood.

I suspect people in general use the net in three ways:

Contacts, information and recreation, in that order.

Contacts: meeting and maintaining contact with people
you have common interests in. It's all very well to 
go to the monthly ferrett/orchid/cyprinidodont/whatever
meeting, but the net gives you the chance to keep in 
daily contact with a larger class of group of these
kinds of people, with a MUCH larger geographical
domain. I have several areas of interest, and never
was much one for organized clubs and societies, but
can now go to almost any city in the civilized world
(read, places that get the net) and know people that
share common intersts.

Information: This speaks for itself. Where can I
buy Poblano chilis ? How do Digital pH meters
work ? What is around in the way of Chinese fonts ?

These are questions I posted only yestedday, and really
would'nt know where else to get answers for them without
expending a lot of time and energy. (Interstingly, less
than 12 hours later, I have about 50% of them answered
to my satisfaction)

Recreation: It's Miller (UK translation: Watney's Red
Barrel) time. Some people like to post to sci.math
for fun. Some people think they're a comedian and
like to post to rec.humor. Some people think they're
P.J.O'Rourke and like to post to talk.bizarre.
Most of the net.users can't see any purpose for
97% of other groups (the ones they don't read). A little
bit of tolerence goes a long way.  One mans meat, and
all that.

If your just pissed off at news.groups, Ian, unsubscribe.
The group really has no purpose. News.announce.newgroups
is for the official announcements, and issues such as
names and charters for groups should be settled in
whatever group the discussion originated (or should
have originated) in. News.groups nowadays is just 
a forum to vent peoples net.newsgroup.philosophy
and should in all reality be renamed to ``news.bizarre''.