filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us (Bela Lubkin) (12/16/89)
This is a call for discussion about the creation of a new newsgroup for
Amiga hardware. Topics that might be relevant to this discussion include:
Why add a new Amiga group? The two existing Amiga discussion groups,
comp.sys.amiga and comp.sys.amiga.tech, have a great deal of traffic.
c.s.a is consistently among the top 20 groups in terms of total size and
number of articles, as well as readership.
Why a hardware group? There was some discussion of a games group;
later, of an art group. Yet by informal survey, games- and art-related
messages each make up about 10% of the traffic in c.s.a;
hardware-related articles amount to about 35%. Thus I believe that a
hardware group is better justified at this time. (35% of ~70 messages/
day is 25/day; I did not survey .tech but it would probably contribute
another 5/day or so to the group). If there was a good name under which
both 'art' and 'games' could be subsumed ('recreation' comes close but
ignores the large percentage of Amiga artists that are doing commercial
work), that group might also be worth considering.
Given a hardware group, what name is appropriate? There are really only
two choices here: comp.sys.amiga.hardware or comp.sys.amiga.hw. I could
live with either but prefer '.hardware'. It follows the precedent set
by comp.sys.mac.hardware; it is clearer; there is no great benefit to a
shorter name.
Ok, given a name, a charter and moderated/unmoderated status must be
determined before a vote can proceed. I don't think there's any
question that this would be an unmoderated group. A first pass at a
charter:
Purpose: discussion about Amiga computer hardware. Questions about
the purchase of new hardware; problems with existing hardware;
reviews of hardware products; modification and hacks of existing
hardware; design of new hardware. POTENTIALLY: hardware-specific
programming (or does that belong in .tech; or should it go
unmentioned so as not to encourage it?)
THIS IS NOT A CALL FOR VOTES; please do not send votes. Usenet
newsgroup creation guidelines do not allow premature votes to be
counted. A call for votes will be posted not before 1 Jan 1990, and
not after 15 Jan 1990, unless major issues remain unresolved through
those dates. Issues to be resolved are:
o What, if any, type of group to create. I say: a hardware group.
o What to call this group: comp.sys.amiga.hardware.
o Whether the group should be moderated: no.
o The group's charter: see above, but please discuss revisions.
Followups are directed to news.groups. Please include news.groups in
all related discussion; please minimize cross-postings to the Amiga
groups. Amiga readers interested in this discussion should follow
news.groups for the next 2-5 weeks (or whatever it takes (but this
should have no reason to generate drawn-out arguments like certain other
recent group proposals)).
Bela Lubkin * * // filbo@gorn.santa-cruz.ca.us CI$: 73047,1112 (slow)
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