laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (12/16/83)
There is an on-going discussion as to whether foo deserves its own newsgroup, going on in net.news.group. The name (foo) changes periodically, but the game remains the same. I am coming to the conclusion that the reason some people are opposed to the creation of group foo is because they do not like foo and thus get some satisfaction out of putting it down. This was brought out to me when I received mail that went "I do not read any newsgroups but net.news and net.unix-wiards but I am opposed to the creation of a newsgroup for something as foolish as a bad television science fiction program". As far as I am concerned, this person is way off base. If he isn't going to read it anyway, what does it matter what it is called. The people who really lose are the people who are not interested in news about foo which is cluttering up newsgroup bar. I would expect that there should be lots of articles which go "i hate foo, get it out of newsgroup bar". It ought to be the people who like foo who have to be shown that enough people dislike it to warrent a new newsgroup. But I do not think that this is happening. What I think is happening is that the people who like foo are saying "we *DESERVE* a newsgroup of our very own" and the people who hate foo are saying in retaliation "oh no you don't, I hate foo, it does not deserve its own newsgroup, and you can keep it right here". The foo likers are thus bating the foo haters, which is silly. The foo haters are shooting themselves in the foot, which is also silly. What we need is newsgroups, not to demonstrate that foo is a great thing that deserves its own newsgroup, but for the convenience of all (more or less, there will always be someone upset no matter what you do). One of the convenient things to remember is that if you don't like foo it is easier to unsubscribe than to keep using your 'n' key. Comments? Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura
ka@hou3c.UUCP (12/18/83)
One problem with having lots of newsgroups is that lots of newsgroups are confusing. Creating newsgroup foo to keep people from discussing the subject in newsgroup bar seems like a fine solution, but if you apply it repetitively, you get more and more groups. At some point, you get too many groups for people to keep track of and they end up discussing foo both in newsgroup foo and in newsgroup bar. Kenneth Almquist
naftoli@aecom.UUCP (Robert Berlinger) (12/19/83)
>> The people who really lose are the people who are not interested in news >> about foo which is cluttering up newsgroup bar. I would expect that there >> should be lots of articles which go "i hate foo, get it out of newsgroup >> bar". It ought to be the people who like foo who have to be shown that >> enough people dislike it to warrent a new newsgroup. But I do not think >> that this is happening. You are absolutely right. It think that most of the concern over new newsgroups is that there are so many unused ones already. 3 people decide to create a newsgroup, start a post-a-thon where everyone they know is blackmailed into sending a supporting post, and then create the group which gets 3 articles all of which are 'you may now post to this group' or 'test'. Of course this isn't the case with all or even most of the newsgroups created. It's just that the *Felix Unger* syndrome seems to hit some of us, and creating new newsgroups is analogous to leaving your shirt tails out. And it's just one more group to unsubscribe to. And more newsgroups (unfortunately) make readnews work harder as it must skim through all the things you don't want to read. Even with all these problems, a more organized and concise network hierarchy, albeit larger seems *neater* to me than cluttering the groups we already have. I think that a larger quantity of well defined and uncluttered newsgroups is better than a smaller quantity of mush. -- Robert Berlinger ...{philabs,cucard}!aecom!naftoli