sciurid@utzoo.UUCP (skippy) (12/10/87)
In article <2785@zeus.TEK.COM>, bryanh@amadeus.TEK.COM (Bryan Hilterbrand) writes: >I'm not the person who misnamed the newsgroup--I just put it in my >newsgroup list. If the basis for this newsgroup was birdwatching, then >it should have been named rec.birdwtchrs (or rec.birders as you >suggested). I doubt this would preclude the parrot and budgie owners from posting their worthies. After all, they watch their parrots, don't they? They just don't use binoculars, right? Obviously the newsgroup should have been called rec.birders.of-birds-in-the-wild.and-no-stuffed-up-parrot-drivel Oh yes. I'll sign up today. >You are correct about the amount of traffic put out by >birdwatchers--it is so minimal that they could not stand alone in a >separate newsgroup. I am (as I've stated before) very much in favor >of a new newsgroup called rec.wildlife or rec.nature, and I would put I wish this would happen. >Also, I'm not going to >waste my time digging through the dog, cat, and goldfish articles to >find the one or two articles a day about birds (NOTE: I do like all >three of the aforementioned pets--I just don't like to read about them). Ah. Here is the real truth. There is a weeny group of parrot owners who rightly ought to post their articles in rec.pets. But they cann't be bothered to read through all the non-parrot postings. They are even too lazy to press their `n' key or set up a kill file. So, surprise, here is a group called `rec.birds' which isn't even used that much. And who cares if dumping drivel about domestic parrots is not what the group was set up for. There is the word `birds' in the name, after all (maybe the `chick' and `bird' watchers in soc.singles should post here too). Besides, only a fool bothers to follow guidelines. And why be bothered to set up a new special interest group--it is too easy not to. One of the nice things about rec.birds has always been its low volume. Surely you can not imagine that volume is in some way related to content? Just look at the volume in the real blabbermouth groups like soc.men, soc.women, and soc.motss. Fortunately, aside from a rash of articles discussing the "proper" role of this group (and these will soon die out--I think we rec.utzoo-jerks are getting `monotonized...' ;-) ), there are very few postings about domestic parrots. I will hope once the parrot owners get bored of scanning the bottoms of their cages for excreta and then writing about it, this newsgroup will regain its orginal, and far more pleasant, form. __ Name: Skippy Mail: Dept. Zoology, Univ. Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A1 UUCP: {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!sciurid