wombat@ccvaxa.UUCP (10/01/85)
My opinions on david's list -- net.abortion, net.politics, net.flame, net.religion, and net.origins are the kind of groups that by their natures seem to distribute a large amount of opinion, especially of the I'm-right-you're-wrong-and-that's-all-there-is- to-it sort. The justifications for creating net.abortion and net.origins (as I recall) were that people were overflowing other notesfiles (lots of abortion debates in net.women, lots of creationism debates in net.religion, and lots of both in net.flame). Rather than try and convince people not to rehash the same debates over and over, they were given their own pastures and left to run wild. I personally would not miss any of them, and it would certainly go a long way towards reducing phone bills. Oddly, I don't think net.motss fits this category. This notesfile serves several purposes. It is an obvious vehicle for disseminating information on AIDS, at least until it begins to affect heterosexuals in larger numbers. It is used by people who are different from most of the people they work with to communicate with others like them across the country, with little harassment (aside from Ken Arndt's random visits and those of shocked bible-belters). It is also a way for straights to learn more about how gays think and live, and education has to make acceptance easier, right? And then we come to the groups close to my heart: net.aviation, net.sf-lovers, and net.books. You can't justify groups like these as easily as something like mod.sources, but many, many people read sf-lovers, not all books are sf so it's nice to have net.books, too, (shouldn't we support reading in this age of declining literacy?), and wherever you get a group of pilots together they're bound to swap flying stories, and I love to listen to flying stories. What would Jeff Williams do with himself if you did away with net.aviation? And while I don't read it myself, if there are readers in net.railroad I think it should stay around, just out of respect for all the old- and not-so-old-timers who got into this business through messing with model railroads and blue boxes. "When you are about to die, a wombat is better than no company at all." Roger Zelazny, *Doorways in the Sand* Wombat ihnp4!uiucdcs!ccvaxa!wombat