wls@astrovax.UUCP (11/22/83)
About a week ago I proposed a new group, net.astro, to discuss topics in and related to astronomy. The configuration I favored was net.astro.wizards for expert discussion of ideas and results, net.astro for non-expert discussion, with possibly a net.astro.amateur if amateur astronomers wanted their own group. I still prefer this configuration but now would prefer to call the expert group net.astro.expert because 1) it sounds a bit less frivolous 2) the name is one character shorter 3) the word expert seems somewhat more likely than wizards to be understood by someone not familiar with the jargon of the net. Reasons 1) and 2) seem stronger to me than 3). I have not yet seen any response, either posted or mailed that was opposed to the idea of an astronomy newsgroup of some sort. However there is a cacophony of different ideas about configuration and names. I count 6 posted responses and 6 Emailed responses in favor of the establishment of an astronomy newsgroup. The following is a summary of responses I've received by electronic mail. I will assume that everyone has seen the posted responses. Doug Tody (kpno!tody) writes: > ... I have talked about setting up an > electronic network among the astronomy centers in the past but never got > anywhere. Your idea seems like a good way to do it, since there are already > a significant number of sites on the unix network. Perhaps even some of the > vms sites could join, given the prevalence of unix emulators. I hear that > Eunice provides uucp. Space tel has the toronto emulator (I forget the name); > I do not know if it provides uucp, but it probably does. > NRAO has unix running on one of their machines. ....... > I confess that I do not read the news myself, cause I don't have time to > wade through all the garbage. I would do it, though, if your scheme succeeded > in keeping the volume to a reasonable and worthwhile level. Best of luck. > Doug. Roger Noe (ihlts!noe) writes: > ... I favor keeping net.space (which is about MUCH more than the manned space > program), moving net.columbia to net.space.prog or net.space.expl > (exploration) and creating net.space.astro. Of course, the names may be > different. Gordon Watson (hou5h!gsw) writes: > Here is a YES for net.astro.*. I am an amateur astronomer - and > net.astro.amateur would be wonderful. net.astro.wizards would be a very > useful service. I'm not so sure there are that many astronomers on the net - > maybe I would have expected more astronomical articles in net.space. Here is > my vote anyway. inuxc!fred writes: > ... I would certainly be interested in net.astro, being a semi-serious > amateur I read everything I can get my hands on. It would be great to > read what the "professionals" have to say to each other on the > lastest findings in Astronomy. I would also estimate that there are > about 6 people here at AT&T CP Indianapolis that feel the same way I do. And last from ukc!dgd: > One vote for net.astro !! -- Bill Sebok Princeton Univ. Astrophysics {allegra,akgua,burl,cbosgd,decvax,ihnp4,kpno,princeton}!astrovax!wls