Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!philmtl!ray From: ray@philmtl.philips.ca (Ray Dunn) Newsgroups: news.groups Subject: Re: soc.culture.canadian? Message-ID: <1064@philmtl.philips.ca> Date: 22 Feb 90 16:09:59 GMT References: <21029@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1244@uscacsc.usc.edu> <99620@looking.on.ca> Organization: Philips Electronics Ltd. Product Group PC. Montreal. Lines: 41 In referenced article, brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes: >Since Canada was the 2nd country to participate in USENET and contains >a reasonable amount of USENET, it should not surprise you to know that there >is already a "can" hierarchy with a variety of groups. Although people outside Canada are probably interested to know of the existence of these groups within Canada, I don't think it's relevant to the suggestion that soc.culture.canada should be created. Discussions take place in soc.culture.* groups from a totally different perspective than in the local groups. Discussions in can.politics about Mulroney, Wilson, or the latest budget, although relevant in a world-wide group, would be interrupted and diluted by people asking who Wilson is (although that question is also often asked here in Canada (:-)), and about the background to the budget etc. Information that is "taken as read" by the local participants. In the same way as soc.culture.british is spending most of its time discussing differences between the UK and the rest of the world, I'm sure the groups local to the UK hardly ever discuss such topics, or do so from a more parochial angle. >A number of sites in the U.S. get these groups and have participants, mostly >expatriate Canadians. I am sure you can get a feed of any of the can groups >via NNTP from some of the Canadian sites on the internet, or by phone. >I think even uunet has them. For similar reasons I'm very much against this. Local distribution groups should *not* be fed to a wider area, it defeats one of the purposes of the restricted distribution - not only that the world is not interested in the local topic (which it may be), but that the locals are not interested in having their discussions in public. Keep local groups local - create *different* groups for world-wide distribution! -- Ray Dunn. | UUCP: ray@philmtl.philips.ca Philips Electronics Ltd. | ..!{uunet|philapd|philabs}!philmtl!ray 600 Dr Frederik Philips Blvd | TEL : (514) 744-8200 Ext : 2347 (Phonemail) St Laurent. Quebec. H4M 2S9 | FAX : (514) 744-6455 TLX : 05-824090