msb@sq.uucp (Mark Brader) (12/27/87)
A response from England to complaints about posting poems about cats in misc.misc reads in part: > You probably don't realise that the originator of the cat poems CAN'T post > to only rec.arts.poems. This group is not available in the UK - in fact like > many of the rec groups it doesn't come into Europe at all. We could > campaign to get it, but as the European gateway machine is pretty well > at its maximum capacity with the groups it gets for us now, it is very > unlikely ... > > So the Europeans either don't post poetry, or send it to the next best group No. So the Europeans either don't post poetry, or start their own poetry group (or groups) with European distribution or less, or start another transatlantic gateway. Just as people who don't get talk.abortion should not post articles on abortion to soc.women, and [FLAME:] people who don't get rec.arts.startrek should not post Star Trek articles to rec.arts.sf- lovers [flame off]. If mcvax!piet doesn't want to carry rec.arts.poems on the transatlantic links, this decision should be respected, regrettable as it may be to some. This may sound harsh coming from North America where most groups reach most places, but that may not necessarily continue to be true as traffic keeps rising (we experienced a cutback period here in Toronto a couple of years ago, for instance; some local shadows of netwide groups were indeed established then). If things got to where only the comp.* groups were carried, would that give me a license to post cat poems to comp.unix.questions, as the closest appropriate group? (No.) Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com "The conversation never became heated, which would have been difficult in any argument where there is a built-in cooling-down period between any remark and its answer." -- Hal Clement, STAR LIGHT
wlinden@dasys1.UUCP (William Linden) (12/29/87)
I understand concerns about, e.g.. Star Trek articles being crossed
wholesale to other groups. But how can you possibly claim that
something does not "belong" in misc.misc? If someone, somewhere, starts
a group for X, do messages about X instantly become taboo here, even
if his distribution comes nowhere near me? Were articles on Lake
Wobegon once permissible, then become forbidden the day rec.arts.wobegon
was created, then become lawful again when it folded? What does
"misc.misc" mean?
--
Will Linden {sun,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\
Compuserve 72737,2150 {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!wlinden
MCI Mail WLINDEN {portal,well,ihnp4,amdahl}!hoptoad/dww@stl.stc.co.uk (David Wright) (12/29/87)
In article <1987Dec27.015006.1547@sq.uucp> msb@sq.UUCP (Mark Brader) writes:
#A response from England to complaints about posting poems about cats in
#misc.misc reads in part:
#
#> You probably don't realise that the originator of the cat poems CAN'T post
#> to only rec.arts.poems. This group is not available in the UK - in fact like
#> many of the rec groups it doesn't come into Europe at all. ...
#> So the Europeans either don't post poetry, or send it to the next best group
#
#No. So the Europeans either don't post poetry, or start their own poetry
#group (or groups) with European distribution or less, or start another
#transatlantic gateway.
Well, transatlantic transmission is rather expensive, unless the cost
is shared across all the sites served (as mcvax's transmission costs are -
unlike most US sites we do pay a share of our backbone's costs - though I
guess not enough to pay for bigger disks :-)). So while not impossible
a second gateway is not practical.
So that leaves either posting locally (e.g. to uk.general or eunet.general,
due to the much lower traffic over here general/followup groups still exist
and work quite well), or posting in misc.misc. Doesn't really matter to me,
I don't post poems myself but I like to read them, which I'd be able to
do in those groups, or in a uk.poems if we started one. But the option
originally suggested, that European poem postings go to rec.arts.poems,
is not possible. So if people outside Europe want to see such poems,
the only sensible group is misc.misc. If not, then I guess you're right to
say "Don't post". But the poems are much more interesting to a world-wide
audience than the "Car for sale in NJ" or "Which college makes sport
compulsory" or "Did you see XXX on TV" that fill much of misc.misc.
Aren't they?
--
Regards,
David Wright STL, London Road, Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, UK
dww@stl.stc.co.uk <or> ...uunet!mcvax!ukc!stl!dww <or> PSI%234237100122::DWWmsb@sq.uucp (Mark Brader) (12/31/87)
William Linden (wlinden@dasys1.UUCP) writes: > ... how can you possibly claim that > something does not "belong" in misc.misc? If someone, somewhere, starts > a group for X, do messages about X instantly become taboo here, even > if his distribution comes nowhere near me? ... I overrode his Followup-To because I think this is a very interesting and news.miscy question. The interpretation that I have always taken is that the spaf's official list of backbone-supported newsgroups is what should be used to resolve such questions. I would therefore say that misc.misc is for anything that doesn't fit under any of the existing newsgroups in that list. For people in deprived areas such as Europe, this may not be a fair interpretation. Or, on the other hand, it may be fair after all. See my earlier article with this Subject line. What do the backbone people feel about this? Mark Brader, SoftQuad Inc., Toronto, utzoo!sq!msb, msb@sq.com "The conversation never became heated, which would have been difficult in any argument where there is a built-in cooling-down period between any remark and its answer." -- Hal Clement, STAR LIGHT
fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) (01/02/88)
In answer to Mark Brader's question, my view is that using misc.misc to replace newsgroups that your site doesn't get is defeating the purpose behind having newsgroups in the first place. Newsgroups are topic separators, and I expect to find germane articles in each and every newsgroup that my site receives. Thus I can tailor the list of newsgroups that I read to reflect my interests. If there is a topic being discussed in a newsgroup I don't get, it is pointless to try and use misc.misc to reach the audience of people interested in that topic, because they're all (in theory) reading the newsgroup I don't get. It also runs contrary to the notion that misc.misc is for discussions that have no newsgroups (of course, our hypothetical discussion has a newsgroup; it's just that my site isn't getting that newsgroup). If your site isn't getting a newsgroup that you want to read, you have two alternatives: 1. Convince the local admin that your newsgroup is worth getting. 2. Grin and bear life without it. Note that option one includes you setting up your very own site and getting that newsgroup or contributing some time or money to your local system admin to offset the cost of receiving and storing the articles in that newsgroup. Either way, it's good to recognize that netnews is not without cost in resources of various types. Newsgroups are the names of the discussion space. Ignore that, and the network is doomed to death by uselessness. After all, what use is a network in which you can't find what you're interested in (and filter out what you're not interested in)? Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu
rblieva@cs.vu.nl (Roemer Lievaart) (01/05/88)
fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) typed: +--------------------------------------- | In answer to Mark Brader's question, my view is that using misc.misc | to replace newsgroups that your site doesn't get is defeating the | purpose behind having newsgroups in the first place. | [ 30 more lines of very formal stuff. ] +--------------------------------------- Sh*********sh. Sorry, Erik, nothing personal to you, but I think this is getting ridiculous. Someone sent a few poems to misc.misc (which I happen to like very very much, like many others) - as happened before and misc.misc never turned into a poem-group - and look what came out of it. A discussion that involves *much more* articles than there were poems. Look, people LIKED them, other people have an 'n' button. *As long it doesn't get out of hand*, nothing is the matter, eh? But there is with this discussion, why is this discussion in misc.misc? There are many other newsgroups were it can and should belong, so why following up to misc.misc? Misc.misc is only for discussions that don't belong anywhere else, so?!?(-:!?! Oh boy, I myself am contributing to this senseless discussion. I'm ashamed of me. Roemer "Catfan" B. Lievaart. ---- Disclaimer: the VU is ashamed of me. I guess I'm lucky still having my login.
bct@its63b.ed.ac.uk (B Tompsett) (01/08/88)
In article <22364@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) writes: >If your site isn't getting a newsgroup that you want to read, [...] > > 1. Convince the local admin that your newsgroup is worth getting. Oh! if it were that easy. That is not how it works this side of the pond. -- > Brian Tompsett. Department of Computer Science, University of Edinburgh, > JCMB, The King's Buildings, Mayfield Road, EDINBURGH, EH9 3JZ, Scotland, U.K. > Telephone: +44 31 667 1081 x2711. > JANET: bct@uk.ac.ed.ecsvax ARPA: bct%ed.ecsvax@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk > USENET: bct@ecsvax.ed.ac.uk UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!ed.ecsvax!bct > BITNET: ukacrl.earn!ed.ecsvax!bct or bct%ed.ecsvax@uk.ac