drears@pica.army.mil (Dennis G. Rears (FSAC)) (11/07/90)
Pat: This doesn't belong in the TELECOM Digest but it was brought up there. Why on USENET is comp.* considered respectable but alt.* considered the "black sheep". It's a real pain for me to read USENET so I don't keep up with it. Dennis [Moderator's Note: One difference between the two is that on Usenet, there is a more formal procedure for starting new groups which involves calling for a discussion regarding the new group and taking a vote to detirmine if it is really wanted or not. Generally, most sites receive most Usenet newsgroups, 'talk.*' being sort of an exception. On the other hand, the alt.groups are formed by anyone at anytime. No permission required. If you know how to do it, you can set one up even if no one but yourself ever posts in it. Many of the alt groups are just downright silly, and intended as jokes from the beginning, witness the spate of alt.big.boobs and similar groups in recent months started by parties unknown. Many sites do not receive the alt groups. In addition, the alt groups generally tend to be harder for a sysadmin to justify to his superiors when s/he is called upon to do so at budget request time, or following a flame war where everyone trashes the postmaster with mail at the same time, etc. If the topic is worth having a group established, it will generally withstand the scrutiny of Usenet debate and voting. Still, many groups would not be on Usenet today had they not proven themselves to be popular and worthwhile after a period of time on Altnet. PAT]