furuta@uw-june (Richard Furuta) (07/22/84)
My personal feeling is that the fa groups should be viewed as read-only additions to the Usenet world which are provided for the information of the Usenet readers rather than as active vehicles for Usenet commentary. I believe this is the way that many of the Arpanet news groups want it to be. There also used to be some sort of administrative distinction that was made saying it was fine to send Arpanet mail into the Usenet but not as fine to have have mail traveling in the same direction (however, I don't know what the current attitude is now that we are called the "experimental Arpanet"). I think, therefore, that plenty of justification exists for separate Usenet "net" groups even when there is a related Arpanet list *if* it is clear that the Usenet group will fill a need (i.e., that it will be used). For example, I think that the current amount of Macintosh discussion on net.micro.apple demonstrate the usefulness of a separate Mac group even though there is a fa.info-mac. --Rick