gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Gregory J.E. Rawlins) (02/10/86)
In article <322@ihu1n.UUCP> johnnyr@ihu1n.UUCP (John R. Rosenberg) writes: >Is anyone else getting sick to death of these pointless lists >of titles that Bill Dippert keeps sending out [...] The problem is economic. If >100 or so people are interested in getting a copy of his lists then it seems unlikely that Mr. Dippert (or his site) would be able to send separate copies of many files. I understand, and sympathize, with your position, but as someone with much the same problem as Bill (i have a list of sf books of size about 1/2 Meg to distribute) i can also understand his and the many people (including myself) who wish to obtain a copy. Please bear with us and exercise your right not to read his postings. >[...] it's easy enough to go to the library and look in Books in Print. But you won't have it on-line, and that's what machines are all about. I understand that Books in Print are computerized (one would think so!) but either the lists aren't generally available or you have to pay lots for it. The problem reduces to: how much can the net be expected to subsidize a minority of its subscribers? This was one of the two reasons i decided not to post (besides the fact that the net would have been flooded for not weeks but *months*). Perhaps Mr. Dippert can be persuaded to make the titles of his postings distinctive in some way so that innocent bystanders can better avoid them in future. greg. -- gjerawlins%watdaisy@waterloo.csnet 1-519-884-3852 Gregory J. E. Rawlins gjerawlins%watdaisy%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa CS Dept., U. Waterloo {allegra,decvax,inhp4,utzoo}!watmath!watdaisy!gjerawlins Waterloo, Ont. N2L3G1
lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (02/11/86)
Unfortunately, we're all forced to pay to RECEIVE those lists, if we want to receive anything else in net.books, simply so that we can discard them if we're not interested. A subgroup net.books.lists might be appropriate. Frankly though, I'm not too sure what use these lists really are--similar lists are available from public sources which are much less expensive than sending such material around the net. Just a personal opinion. --Lauren--