From: eoliver@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au (Eddie Oliver)
Newsgroups: aus.news,aus.general,soc.culture.australian,rec.railroad,rec.models.railroad,rec.models.scale,alt.models,fj.rec.rail,misc.misc,tecc.circle.railway
Subject: Re: aus.rail update
Date: 17 Nov 92 00:34:06 GMT
Organization: Macquarie University, Australia.

In article <Bxs2yB.6pM@syd.dms.CSIRO.AU> stuarta@syd.dms.CSIRO.AU (Stuart Andrews) writes:
>Why have they communicated with *you* and not the proposer? Anything they
>say to you is surely of no significance to the discussion at hand b'cause
>it is a private discussion, and not presented in the proper channels.
>
Much of this debate is actually about a rather different issue, i.e. why
do people (actually or allegedly) not contribute to existing communication
processes, and then complain that they want something different.

At the beginning of this debate, we heard that although rec.railroad is 
in principle a perfectly valid format for aus.rail communications, people
choose not to use it. WHY NOT? If that question were answered effectively,
we would have a more rational basis for the whole discussion.

As for your specific question, it is a fact of life that people choose
to communicate with those who they feel in empathy with. When people do
not (for whatever reason) want to put their views out onto the whole net,
they are often more likely to send messages of encouragement to the people
thay agree with (along the lines of "keep up the fight").

>
>Further, to my mind, there should *never* be any responses in the negative
>when the creation of a new group is discussed, unless there is *already*
>a group which is a suitable point for the subject planned for the new group.

There is! rec.railroad is perfectly good, and has been used successfully for
the purpose for a very long time. You are actually agreeing with me!

>If I don't want to read the new group, I shall simply not subscribe. If
>everyone on a site doesn't read it, the sys admin simply doesn't receive it.
>No cost to the site. No cost to you.

That might be true with your site. It is not true with many, as has been
frequently pointed out in other contexts on usenet. Moreover there is a
much broader problem, in that proliferation of newsgroups is a strong
deterrent against many organisations sustaining full participation.
We need to be very careful that the continued establishment of more and more
groups does not result in administrations reducing access overall, possibly
to the level where access is restricted to only those groups which someone
deems "necessary" for the running of the respective establishment.

>I don't want to read aus.rail, but I don't believe I have *any* right
>whatsoever to stop those who do. (See the Voltaire quote in my .sig
>and perhaps rethink your motives...)
>
>Now Eddie, if I may ask, why is it necessary for you to fight aus.rail, rather
>than simply chose not to read? Are we seeing the arrival of a 'thought police'
>mentality? Is '1984' closer than we think?
>

Absolutely not. Again, you and I are actually in agreement - I am trying to
stop a REDUCTION of freedom. At present, anyone around the world can take
part in discussions of the material which aus.rail would contain, and (as
I said a few weeks ago) this often results in valuable cross-fertilisation
and developments of threads which are significant very widely. If aus.rail
goes ahead, there will be many current readers of rec.railroad across the
world who will be deprived of the Australian material, and WE will be
deprived of the benefits of the broader discussions which can ensue.

I would be in wholehearted agreement with you IF there were no other
mechanism for the communications in the aus.rail proposal. However
since there is such a mechanism which (to the best of my knowledge) works
perfectly well, the situation is exactly the type where you say that objections
are justified.

Eddie
Newsgroups: aus.news