rcj (02/07/83)
The following reply is indicative of what I have sofar received: %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% On your question of how specialized news groups should be: As specialized as people want them, of course. News groups that fill only a temporary need will fall into desuetude. As some one as pointed out, if a group is to have a roughly constant flux of articles while the number of readers and writers rises, there will have to be more groups. Automatic time cancellation of groups, either locally or globally, will take care of the problem of dead but not eliminated groups. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% This is very good in a general sense, but it goes nowhere towards answering my question. Perhaps I was not clear enough: I would like DEFINITIVE answers (use examples, whatever) of just how specialized YOU think newsgroups should be. What are the necessary criteria for the creation of a new group? Don't say "enough interest", tell me how you might measure that interest in some fairly objective manner. I hope that, given enough replies, we can put out some kind of document similar to the VERY useful and informative 'Emily Post for Netnews' put out some time ago. This new set of guidelines would relate to the creation of new groups; criteria, methods, etc. All I'm trying to do is streamline the new group creation process, without taking all the intelligent discussion away by giving absolute rules (i.e., a newsgroup may be created iff we receive x articles in y days on the subject...) That view is pretty bogus given the rather wonderfully haphazard nature of the net (I find it enjoyable), but I and apparently a lot of others think that it has gotten out of hand recently with the endless raging about net.women, net.religion, net.philosophy, etc. A last note, to the author of the above letter; no flames to you, I just probably was not clear enough about what I wanted, thanks. Thanx in advance for your input, The MAD Programmer alias: Curtis Jackson ...!floyd!burl!rcj ...!sb1!burl!rcj ...!mhuxv!burl!rcj