rsex@stb.UUCP (02/23/90)
>From: werner@zephyr.sw.mcc.com (Werner Uhrig) <3484@zephyr.sw.mcc.com> > >> The name that I had previously [suggested] was SCI.AQUARIA.RESEARCH > > how about something simple like SCI.BIO.FISH > (I'm sure there is a Latin name akin to flora and fauna, but > I can't remember it). Ichthyology. > it simply makes no sense to have AQUARIA as a name directly > under SCI. Perhaps, but you don't indicate why. > I can envision the day when a > group named SCI.BIO.FISH.AQUARIA would deserve to get created > (when the superior group overflows with traffic) - and I can even > imagine someone having a problem because he has only plants and > no fishes in the water) - but maybe someone can then suggest a > SCI.BIO.FLORA or the appropriate Latin word for plant-life in water. > and if someone is absolutely enamored with the pure science involved > in aquariums, well then let's have a group SCI.TECH.AQUARIUMS, > by all means (and 100+ votes) otherwise create a private or > semi-public mailing-list, for all I know there already may be > one around.A I find this interesting (and encouraging) that you recognize the need for a newsgroup for the more esoteric aspects of fishkeeping that get debated among the admitted minority of fishkeepers that pursue this endeavor with a test tube in one hand and dipnet in the other. While this group is in the minority, these are the people that generally have the answers to the questions. I'm not sure you're exactly hit the nail on the head as far as coming up with a name for the group however. As far as sci.bio.fish goes, while there are people who keep only plants, there are a far greater number of people who keep only (marine) invertebrates, so limiting the name with a .fish. seems awkward. Sci.bio.fish.aquaria is rather obtuse, and I can't figure out how it how the semantics of the name imply a group of a different charter. Sci.tech.aquariums, is fine, but since the sci.domain is held to be for ``sciences or things of a highly technical nature'' (ie. sci.military) then the .tech. part would seem to be redundant. > And please do consider that electronic news can > in many aspects never come close to what you can get out of a > paper-magazine !!! This thought is worthy of a thread of discussion itself. On one had it is true. You can't have nice colour pictures on usenet (well, at least easily). On the other hand, the great advantage of USENET over the monthly periodicals, is when you don't understand (or agree with) something somebody has written, you can get (more or less) instant feedback. Plus the concept of a discussion thread is foreign to the periodicals. They publish an article and *poof* that's it. End of discussion on that point. On USENET you can debate a subject until you feel you have resolved the relevant issues (or everybody is asleep). Of course the monthly magazines have other problems: they are 70% advertising, and much of the editorial content is tempered to make the advertisers look better than they are in the naked light of day. One learns this when writing for them. They pick an arbitrary skill level and write to that level, totally ignoring very naive or very advanced members of their audience. I personally don't bother with the monthly periodicals any more. I've learned more about fishkeeping from USENET in the last 3 years than I've learned from reading 20 years of 5 different aquarium magazines. Your point might be well taken with respect to books instead of periodicals, but in all honesty, of the 500 or so books written on aquarium fishes and fishkeeping, only about 30 are worth owning. The other 470 either give totally inaccurate advice or all contradict each other. So no, USENET is vastly preferable to the paper magazines. It should supplement a small, but well chosen collection of books. > I deplore that rec.aquaria is getting a bad name because some > idiots insisted on creating sci.aquaria and it is high time that > reasonable people adjust things so hobbyist can have their forum > and those who discuss fishies on a scientific level have a respected > and well-distributed forum also. I read this article right after the one you wrote, Werner, where you admonished Tim Maroney for making personal attacks. Does this strike you as slightly hypocritical? To address the rest of your paragraph: you want reasonable people to adjust things so hobbyists have a forum and sci.fishheads have a well distributed forum. That casual hobbyists have a place to post nobody can sensibly disagree with. That the sci.fishheads have a place to post is perhaps a controversial idea, but what are the alternatives ? Post to sci.bio amid all the heavy duty scientific discussions about why female chimpanzees caused rust stains, and get hate.mail from a large number of people who care not one whit about aquarium denizens, or post to rec.aquaria and perpetuate the myth that ``discussions on USENET are too hibrow for the casual user'' by mixing articles intended for vastly different audiences. Is there anybody on the net that disagrees with these lofty ideals ? The easiest course of action to achieve these goals is to fully propagate rec and sci.aquaria. If this happens, alt.aquaria can be removed and the need to crosspost will go away. So will the discussion(s) in news.groups. To forestall the impending: ``But the vote was fraudulent, so dammit we're not going to honor it''. Big deal. Minor fraud was demonstrated on both sides, but the point remains, the group exists, it's a good group and the naysayers that continue to alias or not carry it are doing no good; they merely perpetuate a problem that is going to be discussed over and over again until more bandwidth has been wasted in this question than will ever be spend discussing fish. If that's what you want, fine. It seems like rather a waste, to me however.
brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (02/24/90)
My kill file isn't broken Richard. (Even if it were, it would accept the article with my name before it rejected it for talking about fish.) The thing that disturbs me about the endless fish debate is not that it's a big annoying debate -- there is no shortage of those on USENET! One of the most interesting things on the net for me is the net itself. Like many of you out there, I'm reading this group to participate in the growth of that net. In news.* we discuss that. But of late that discussion has become overwhelmed with pointless blech about issues that don't matter at all. How to name an aqauarium group is an issue, but something is wrong if it's anything but a tiny, minor issue. And yet people keep treating it as one of the top issues of USENET. This bothers more than just me, I know it. Alt.aquaria was a marginal group to begin with. Its entry into other hiearchies should have been a simple task. Not only was it one of the messiest and most complex things to happen on the net in a long time, people keep bringing it back. On any other net this would have been a 30 second decision, and people would have lived with it. I'm not saying we should necessarily go to that sort of administrative technique, but obviously they have one up on us in cases like this. A 30 second decision about a group that is minor in the grand scheme should not involve months of debate, many hundreds of messages and yet more debate when it should be over. -- Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473