lauren@vortex.UUCP (Lauren Weinstein) (09/17/83)
While I certainly am not about to claim that all material on the net is of "high quality" (cough, choke), I'm not too sure where it says that all (or even most) of the material on the net must concern "useful technical subjects". Human nature being what it is, it's the more "peripheral" topics that keep many people interested enough to participate in the more serious discussions. While we may indeed seem to be rather "top-heavy" with non-technical materials, I *don't* believe it's desirable to impose the sorts of controls which would be necessary (on a network-wide basis) to avoid such a situation. And where would we draw the line? I for one would not follow netnews as closely as I (attempt) to do if it were purely a technical forum. Of course, individual sites are always free to make newsgroup distribution decisions according to their own local feelings on this matter, though backbone sites of course affect many "downstream" sites if they impose restrictions. --Lauren--
eric@aplvax.UUCP (09/19/83)
I too am in favor of allowing all newsgroups to continue as they are. Unfortunately, the management here is starting to take a dim view of the time uucp is logged in, especially when they learn the content of the news: MOTSS, your first computer, net.suicide, etc. I assume others have run into this, what arguments did you use and were they successful? I have tried arguing that there are enough "gray" area groups that we should keep them all, but they do have some valid points. eric ...!seismo!umcp-cs!aplvax!eric