avi@pegasus.UUCP (11/03/83)
For question 4 of my poll, most people do have somewhat different expectations from net.religion -- and related newsgroups. Some people claim to have the same standards everywhere. The question was: 4 - Do you have different standards for other newsgroups? Explain. - THREE simple "No" replies. - No, I pretty much use that [same] criteria for reading an article. - Yes. For example, I read everything in net.jokes, because the time required to scan the subject and decide whether to read it is not much greater than the time to read the entire article. - I am more likely to read a random article in net.religion then in other news groups. - I am more likely to save articles in other newsgroups for later reading. - Yes. In net.religion, net.philosophy and net.politics I expect longer articles. So can net.sources. But I want my jokes SHORT and long heated arguments in net.lang.c and unix-wizards stop being interesting for me really quickly. - Yes. I *do* read the subject line for items in net.unix-wizards. For net.flame, I read most articles until a particular discussion gets too old (unless I'm personally involved). For example, I started ignoring the 55mph debate after about 4 days. - Yes, my limit in other newsgroups is about 100-150 lines. I do make exceptions if the article looks promising though. - I expect longer articles in net.religion and net.philosophy. Regardless of the newsgroup, I usually start reading and quit if it doesn't seem worth it. - Other newsgroups - same standards, ie, interest quotient; although I would probably read long poems if they were submitted. - Yes, there is so much verbosity here that I am less likely to follow an article for very long. - Yes. I consider that articles in such groups as net.religion, net.philosophy, and net.politics probably tend to be longer because of the nature of the subject matter, and hence I 'tolerate' a lengthier article. If a garden-variety subject article in net.general or net.wanted exceeds a screenful, I probably won't look at it. - Yes. If an article on net.philosophy is longer than 12 lines, I skip it. I read long articles on net.jokes. Net.flame gets about the same treatment this group does. etc. - My standards are lax for newsgroups which I don't know anything about, or that I am very interested in. I am much more likely to skip a message in a very active newsgroup, rather than an inactive one. Perhaps these are not "different standards," though. - I am usually more tolerable for net.religion, due to the fact that ALL articles I have seen so far are long, undistinguishably long. So for net.religion the cut-off goes up to ~ 30 lines. Editors comments: I certainly have different expectations from this group. Besides longer articles, I am willing to suspend belief - somewhat - in order to try to follow some of the discussions. At the same time, i find some discussions hard to take seriously -- such as the Great Unending Mormon debate. I am amazed that I still read this newsgroup, now that I have shut off other religious newsgroups such as philosophy and politics and physics. -- -=> Avi E. Gross @ AT&T Information Systems Laboratories (201) 576-6241 suggested paths: [ihnp4, allegra, cbosg, hogpc, ...]!pegasus!avi