njs@uunet.UU.NET (Nicholas J. Simicich) (10/31/89)
I've been following the pro wrestling discussion in rec.sport.misc for a while, and contributing to it occasionally. I'm frankly not interested in Triathelons, Cricket, and so forth, except occasionally. I'm never interested in World Cup results. Thus, I've been attempting to construct a kill file suitable for seeing only wrestling articles. It's not working. It takes longer to run the kill file than to read the newsgroup. If I were more interested in sports in general, I wouldn't mind. But frankly, pro wrestling doesn't seem to go with the potpourri of sports discussed there. Pro wrestling is a soap opera, with some staged acrobatics. Many of the wrestling readers don't want to see the other articles, and the sports fans don't want to see ours. When I posted an article in rec.sport.misc, asking for email responses so that I could determine interest in splitting out a wrestling group, I got one favorable response from someone who has been attempting to build a kill file to get rid of wrestling articles, and had missed mine. Wrestling just doesn't fit in. About the newsgroup name: There is a real sport of wrestling that is practiced at the Olympic level and in High School and College. If there is ever to be a newsgroup to discuss that sport, it should probably be rec.sport.wrestling. With pro wrestling out of rec.sport.misc, "real" wrestling could be discussed there as well. Another possibility is rec.arts.tv.wrestling. But there is a lot more to wrestling than goes on on TV. There are local shows by independent promoters which never make it to TV, and may not even be advertised. So the TV part of the label is not appropriate. A final possibility was talk.wrestling. rec.arts.wrestling just seemed more appropriate, since going to matches or watching them on TV is a recreational activity. I briefly thought about sci.wrestling, so that it could get into Europe :-), but discarded the idea. As for a charter, how about: A newsgroup to discuss Professional Wrestling and related exhibition "sports". I can't imagine that this group should have a moderator or be moderated. Followups to news.groups. -- Nick Simicich --- uunet!bywater!scifi!njs --- njs@ibm.com (Internet)