From: jfurr@nyx.cs.du.edu (Joel Furr)
Subject: Re: leave alt.folklore.computers alone, rmgroup comp.society.folklore
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Date: Sat, 7 Nov 92 02:29:42 GMT

In article <7705@lib.tmc.edu> jmaynard@oac.hsc.uth.tmc.edu (Jay Maynard) writes:
>In article <1992Nov4.094001.4254@pollux.lu.se> magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:
>>In an ideal world, moving a.f.c to the mainstream Usenet would have two
>>effects: 
>
>>a) Everybody who doesn't receive it today, because their news manager
>>is a paranoid, anal retentive fascist who believes alt.* is inherently
>>evil, would receive the new group.
>
>Sorry, but your characterization of my newsadmin as a "paranoid,
>anal-retentive fascist" is highly inaccurate. The recent business about
>alt.hairy-douchebag... lends strong weight to his argument that alt is a sewer
>that requires more administrative effort than it's worth.
>
>>b) Everybody who recieves it today would still receive it in the new
>>hierarchy. 
>
>I truly believe that this is the case; it's much easier to convince a sysadmin
>to get a mainstream newsgroup, even if the hierarchy as a whole isn't being
>carried, than it is to do the same for an alt group.
>
>>As I've said before, moving to comp could actually
>>*worsen* the distribution - just look at the comp.society.folklore
>>debacle. 
>
>I believe the comp.society.folklore debacle was due to technical problems that
>didn't get corrected in time for the group to take off. People lost interest
>when the group appeared to be broken.
>
>>So what about soc? I'm not sure, but would that really improve the
>>distibution? And at least to me, soc.folklore.computers sounds too
>>"sociological" - I'm afraid this new group would have a *much* heavier
>>bias towards actually discussing "computer folklore", and there would
>>be a serious risk of "serious" newcomers flaming away at the oldtimers
>>who try to continue the technical discussions: "Get away, this is a
>>soc newsgroup, move your boring technology talk to comp".
>
>You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either it's sociological, and so
>doesn't have technical discussions in it, or it has technical discussions in
>it, and so is properly placed in the comp hierarchy.
>
>>This is YOUR opinion. Given the nature of alt, I'd say you could find
>>as many opinions on this issue as there are people who read the
>>groups. MY opinion is that since alt is (almost) an anarchy,
>>*anything* fits in the alt hierarchy. 
>
>...but, if it fits in the mainstream 7 hierarchies, that's a better place.
>
>>As long as the propagation of a.f.c is as good as it is, I don't think
>>moving it to the mainstream just to improve distribution is a good
>>idea. I'd *definitely* vote against moving it to the talk or misc
>>hierarchies, and I have grave misgivings about comp and soc.
>
>Whatever happened to the "get your sysadmin to carry it" argument? More would
>automatically carry it in the mainstream than would in alt, adn those who
>don't need merely to get their sysadmins to pick it up. I seriously doubt that
>there are more than a small handful of sites that automatically carry anything
>in alt but not in the mainstream.

We can talk about the evils of the alt. hierarchy all day, but face facts. 
If this discussion is meant to persuade people to vote for expropriating
alt.folklore.computers to the comp. hierarchy where many, many sysadmins
wouldn't carry it, let me just say that there are a *lot* of alt.folklore
participants who would be happy to vote *no* to any such CFV.  And given
the way in which one no vote cancels out two yes votes, you'd need
beaucoup yes votes to beat us. 

Good luck.