[net.news.group] new group, or no?

kos (12/15/82)

#N:uiucdcs:11200010:000:431
uiucdcs!kos    Dec 14 16:33:00 1982

There was recently a discussion in net.auto about the creation of a new
newsgroup for racing information.  I collected votes on the proposition,
and the total count was 22 in favor of "net.auto.race", and 10 opposed
to creating a new newsgroup.  Well, that seems like enough people to
warrant a new newsgroup; but is it really?  What do you netters out
there say?  And if it comes to actually creating the group, how is this
done?

sjb (12/16/82)

I think it's a good idea, but instead of limiting ourselves
to auto racing, why not make it net.sport.race instead?
After all, there are all kinds of racing (boat, auto, etc.),
and it is really a sport, not just something you do with
automobiles.

kos (12/17/82)

#R:uiucdcs:11200010:uiucdcs:11200011:000:1236
uiucdcs!kos    Dec 16 17:24:00 1982

This is true.  I had even considered this, but discarded the notion
for the same reason that the vote was taken in the first place: most
of the people who read net.auto really aren't interested in hearing
about racing, and there are even a few who said they would stop
reading net.auto unless racing news was put in a separate group.  If
other forms of racing were included (as they must be if the group
were to be net.rec.racing, or whatever), many of the readers would
be turned off by the articles they aren't particularly interested in
reading, much as those in net.auto who don't want to hear about racing
are turned off by it.  I think this would also be true of people who
would read net.rec.racing for info on other forms of racing.  There
are lots of means for going fast, and people who are interested in
the subject are generally interested in only a few, usually closely
related, means.

I am willing to open the topic for discussion in here, though.  What
do all of you think?

By the way, I got a mail response to my original article, saying that
the size of the vote didn't really merit a new group.  This seems
reasonable - any other comments?



				Phil Kos
				University of Illinois
				...decvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!kos

sjb (12/17/82)

net.rec is really for participant ''sports'' while net.sport is
for spectator sports.  I would define racing as a spectator sport,
therefore I would suggest net.sport.race