daemon@decwrl.UUCP (02/08/84)
From: akov68::boyajian I cannot beLIEVE the vehemence with which Rich Rosen opposes the formation of net.music.subgroups. I think his fear that they will keep subdividing is inane. I haven't seen any evidence that net.sport.baseball has split into net.sport.base- ball.american-league & net.sport.baseball.national-league or that net.rec.birds has degenerated into net.rec.birds.swallows.european & net.rec.birds.swallows.african. Hell, let's take his solution to the extreme and combine everything into net.cosmic-all and have everyone reading about everything. After all, if there's a posting about sf-loving female homosexual nudist Christian wombats that you don't want to read, all you have to do is hit the `n' key! (By the way, the "`n' key" argument doesn't always hold water, I'm afraid. I, and I'm sure many others, am on a VAX within DEC running VMS and are getting these newsgroups as mail messages. Using the NEXT command in VMS Mail would send me to the next mail packet (ie newsgroup), not the next posting within a news- group.) One specific item: "If their can't be a newsgroup where you can discuss MUSIC without having to pick a subgroup to post to, then what's the point to having net.music at all?" Ah, that *is* the point! If you want to discuss MUSIC in general and not a specific type of music, then there's still net.music <no subgroup> to post to. One more specific item: "The notion of subgroups only serves to per- petuate that ["looking-down-your-nose-at-other-musics"] syndrome." True, but the difference is that with the classical music fans having a separate subgroup from the rock fans, they won't have to PUT UP WITH disparaging comments about classical music from rock fans (and vice of course versa). --- jayembee (Jerry Boyajian, DEC Maynard) UUCP: (decvax!decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian) ARPA: (decwrl!rhea!akov68!boyajian@Shasta)
twiss@stolaf.UUCP (Thomas S. Twiss) (02/10/84)
Jerry Boyajian says (in response to the argument that subgroups will perpetuate the elitist attitudes of musical tastes) that the subgroups will make it possible for people to not have to put up with "snootiness" (wow, I hope no English Prof reads that sentence!). This may be true, Jerry, but that certainly doesn't solve the problem, does it? Rather than changing people's elitist attitudes, the subgroups merely enforces them and causes us to turn our backs to the problem. This is no solution. Obviously, Prentiss Riddle doesn't believe that the group will become as fragmented as he showed, he is merely pointing out through hyperbole that the subgroups would contribute to a very narrow view of music. This is particularly bad because (whether people realize it or not) all genres of music are VERY closely related, and to break up the group will cease to expand our horizons (that may be unnecessarily melodramatic, but it's true). FLAME AWAY!! I don't care because this is... From the asbestos keyboard of, Tom Twiss ...!ihnp4!stolaf!twiss