richard@gryphon.COM (Richard Sexton) (12/28/89)
In article <759@wang.UUCP> fitz@wang.UUCP (Tom Fitzgerald) writes: > >(I know I'm not Chuq, but this one's easy even for me.) Here's what >"should" happen, barring any fundamental change in human nature: > >Phase 1: > >The beginners post their questions to rec.aquaria and the experts, in >a friendly fashion, help them out. Deep wizardly discussions occur in >sci.aquaria. Right. >Phase 2: > >The experts, getting tired of answering the same questions over and over >again, and seeing that they're spending too much time reading news, >unsubscribe to rec.aquaria and continue their discussions in sci.aquaria. >The amateurs keep posting questions to rec.aquaria, but none of the >experts are there to answer. The few helpful responses are posted by >other beginners, who turn out to be often wrong, resulting in many dead >fish. No. We're setting up a ``answers to frquesntly asked questions'' thingy. >Phase 3: > >The beginners buy more fish and realize that the experts are all >over in sci.aquaria, so post their questions there. The experts still >don't want to answer beginners' questions, and flame the beginners for >posting in the wrong newsgroup. No. I cannot predict what will happen in sci and rec.aquaria, but in almost 3 years of reading alt.aquaria I can not honestly remember any flames. Real wierd for a usenet group. Especially considering Oleg and I post to it :-) >Phase 4: > >Sci.aquaria now contains a large quantity of beginners' questions ad >flames. Those experts without lots of spare time unsubscribe to >sci.aquaria because of the volume, and when they do post, say "Please >e-mail responses because I don't follow this group". In response, they >get flamed. Those beginners who still post to rec.aquaria get more >dead fish. > >Phases 3 and 4 repeat indefinitely. The only way out is to create a single >fishy group, or to moderate sci.aquaria. My what a pessimist. If no. 4 is a problem, we can think about moderation.