phoenix@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (05/06/85)
[Bug?.... What Bug!]
Well folks, the time has come for a newsgroup for every region. In my initial
reply to Wale Akinpelu's article I mentioned in passing that it would be a good
idea to have such an arrangement. From the postings for net.nlang.spanish and
net.nlang.asia, I believe this sentiment is shared by others in net.land. My
main concern is that the groups cover the globe as efficiently as possible.
If we continue piecemeal, we may end up with a patchwork as unwieldy as
net.general and other net groups.
I have no doubt that there are enough people out there interested in differant
regions that each new group would be reasonably utilized if designed properly.
My suggestion, therefore, is that one of the name wizards put together for us
a concise, rational, machine-friendly list for our perusal. At the risk of
being flamed for any number of things, I shall put forward a *tentative* list
here, for all of you to sink your teeth into. [Prepend net.nlang]
Region Name Includes
---------- ---------- -----------------------------------------------
Sub-Sahara .africa Whole continent minus: Morrocco, Algeria,
Africa Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.
Middle East .mideast N. Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Israel, Lebanon,
Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey (Persia).
East Asia .e-asia Japan and Korea
South East .se-asia Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam,
Asia Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Phillipines
Australia/ .ausnew Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea
New Zealand
China .china China, Mongolia, Taiwan, Hong Kong
India .india India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal
West Europe .w-europe Western Europe(unified Germany) and Scandanavia
East Europe .slavic Poland, Czech., Hungary, Yug., Bulgaria,
Romania, Albania
U.S.S.R. .ussr All the many regions of the Soviet Union.
South .s-america The whole continent
America
Central .c-america Mexico to Panama, and the Caribbean
America
North America .n-america U.S.A. and Canada, plus Greenland
- - - - - - - - - - - -
If I've left anyone out, or you feel I have glossed something over or offended
you in any number of ways, don't shoot me. This is a *rough* listing destined
to be modified. It is difficult to meet all of the criteria, including
the need to make groups broad enough to ensure a modicum of activity. For
instance, I considered a .caribbean instead of including it in .c-america,
but I was advised that usage might be too low. I also wished to avoid
falling too much into politics, and away from culture and language. This
is the reasoning for .slavic instead of .e-europe; however, it is virtually
impossible to avoid the 'geopolitique' completely (note .mideast, .se-asia,
.n-america, .w-europe, .ussr, etc...).
Some final odds and ends: 1) I did not want to include Australia etc.
in .se-asia, but I do not know if it will fly on its own. Suggestions?
2) To avoid being too ethno-centric, I included a .n-america; will it
be used by the N. American majority, or is there enough interest in the
rest of the net? 3) Should we just set up vague regional or cultural
catagories, and let it subdivide from there? Come on you netters,
mail me some suggestions, or follow-up here. Let us decide if this is a
good way to avoid the ensuing mess. Remember, if some of these groups
do not work out this time around, we can always cancel them! I have a
feeling a number of you out there are closet region junkies, however. {:-)
Be patient on responses, I am going into finals. And, if the below address
is for some odd reason not recognized, prepend a decvax! - they *have* to be
recognized. {:-)
0 0 (Crises?.... What Crises?)
^
\_/ John
Phoenix@ucbtopaz ucbvax!ucbtopaz!phoenixmark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (05/06/85)
I'm not sure if this posting is intended to be serious or (-:. If it is serious, and people really do want such regional groups, there are two issues to be addressed. (1) Do we have the bandwidth on Usenet to afford the extra traffic this will generate? Every time we make a new newsgroup, we add traffic to the net, and we add to the time people spend reading news. Is this justified? (2) If we do decide to create all these groups at once, perhaps we should correct the mistake we made of calling these "net.nlang.all". It's clear that this branch of the tree has evolved into discussions of culture, not of the languages themselves. So perhaps they should be renamed "net.cult.all" (or some other more descriptive name - I suppose this could be taken to be discussions about the Moonies and Jim Jones.) Mark Horton
riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (05/07/85)
I see two main problems with this proposal. One is that the existing
newsgroups under net.nlang are organized around cultures, while the proposed
scheme is geographical. Net.nlang.africa, for instance, covers
Afro-American topics as well as strictly African ones. Why have separate
newsgroups for Central America and South America? Why have a newsgroup for
North America at all? (It could easily be argued that *every* newsgroup is
a North American newsgroup, in the same sense that "every day is children's
day," as my parents used to tell their kids when we'd complain about the
unfairness of Mothers' and Fathers' Day.)
Secondly, why have newsgroups for any region until people come forward and
express interest in it? The concern being addressed by this proposal is a
desire to avoid an unwieldy hodge-podge of regional newsgroups, but maybe
the interests of Usenetters are something of a hodge-podge and the newsgroup
structure should reflect that. Who would have predicted a priori that the
first two such newsgroups would be net.nlang.celts and net.nlang.greek?
Geographically the regions in question don't amount to much on the global
scale, but the interest in them in the Usenet community apparently far
outweighs their geographical importance.
--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
--- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle
--- riddle@ut-sally.UUCP, riddle@ut-sally.ARPA, riddle%zotz@ut-sallyalb@brunix.UUCP (Adam L. Buchsbaum) (05/08/85)
I'm hoping that that suggestion wasn't a bit serious. If we are going to blanketly create subdivisions of groups BEFORE interest and activity is shown (i.e. on the assumption that such interest exists), then we may as well create subdivisions of net.space for every space program we have (judging from the outcry in net.columbia about lack of news coverage, I think there is interest), subdivisions of net.religion for every religion in the world (the religions exist, therefore people must be be interested in them), subdivisions of net.politics for every political party (same reason as religion), etc. I don't think I have to go on, but I could come up with reasons for practically every other group we have. Waiting for at least one person to say that these are good ideas and send the newgroup messages around, Adam
drg@rlvd.UUCP (Duncan Gibson) (05/18/85)
I was under the impression that "net.*" groups were network i.e. WORLD wide and not just limited to North America. Is this the reason why there are so many parochial arguments? because people do not understand the difference!