Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Netiquette on "joining" existing newsgroup ?
Message-ID: <2137@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 23 Feb 90 14:56:00 GMT
References: <1078@nems.dt.navy.mil>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 33

In article <1078@nems.dt.navy.mil> lumsdon@dtoa1.dt.navy.mil (Esther Lumsdon) writes:

| 3) Continue posting our stuff in the existing group comp.lang.idl, as
| there hadn't been a posting in it in the 5.5 months prior to one of
| us asking what this group is for. Sort of a hostile takeover, with 1
| poster politely defending the original charter of the newsgroup.

Following is opinion:

  I personally would have used the group until someone complained about
it, but I'm like that. "Anything not expressly forbidden is allowed."
Now that you have admitted to make good use of this dead group, there
will be a great outcry to stop you from doing so and then to delete the
group because it isn't being used. Then you can call for creation of
another group (with the same name).

  If anyone really cares, you may have to move to comp.lang.misc until
you get enough people there to vote for a group of your own just to get
you out of the group.

And some ideas:

  If all of you are on one site, restrict your distribution to local.

  Make a suggestion to change the *definition* of the group to include
both flavors of the idl language, and get a vote on it. We have no
procedure for this, so it should be amusing... people who never knew the
group existed will defend its (unused) purity, perhaps.

  Form an alt group if you can, or use comp.lang.misc if you can't.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
            "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me