From: del@fnx.uucp (Dag Erik Lindberg)
Subject: Re: Newsgroup Creation (Was Proposal for pnw.motss)
Organization: I/Ovations
Distribution: pnw
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 18:58:40 GMT

In <BvvI0A.GwG@ars2.uucp> briank@ars2.uucp (D. Brian Kimmel) writes:

	[ 70 lines of filler deleted ]

Please edit your inclusions before adding your comments to the end.

>If any local group starts to get out of hand (sending megs of data
>that is only useful to a few people for example), then the news
>administrators should get together and restrict or remove the group.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
When has this *ever* happened?  History has shown that system administrators
do not "get together" on anything.  History has shown that it is virtually
impossible to kill a group once created.

>I think we try to make it overly hard for people to create and use
>a tool (the newsgroup).  Way harder than IMHO it ought to be.

Your attitude is similar to that of a local chat bbs, where the whole
point is to get people to post messages, no matter how inane.  I will
resist the urge to enter "grampa" mode and tell you how it used to be
on usenet.  But my concern, using your proposal for addition of newsgroups,
is that the local news hierarchy will become fragmented to the point where
it is of little value.

Scenario:  Cyclists plan a huge road trip, the biggest ever.  The message
traffic is fast and furious.  Hey, create a pnw.bicycling!  Certainly have
5 votes, not many objections (everyone in pnw.general is a little tired of
the great pnw-trek discussion), so it gets created.  The great day passes,
interest dwindles, and pnw.bicycling drops back to it's few messages that
used to get posted in pnw.general.

In the above scenario, I would have added pnw-trek to my kill file, because
my interest does not extend to that area of cycling.  However, the few
messages about cycling that show up have more-or-less general interest.

Now repeat the above scenario a dozen times.  It wouldn't take that long,
these kind of discussions seem to be always popping up.  Rather quickly
you have a situation where pnw has become 20 groups or more, each with
little (or *no*) traffic.  No longer would I (we) have a newsgroup to
read that sort-of gives a pulse of the pnw (or seattle) areas.  Instead
would be a fragmented bunch of groups that I would subscribe to (or not)
according to my specific interest in that topic.  Little different from
the rest of usenet, except for a restricted distribution and viewpoint.

I applaud the pnw.motss people for initiating this discussion.  It has
moved beyond the discussion of the validity of their particular newsgroup
and into the generalities of creating newsgroups.

For pnw.motss, I think they made their case in favour of creating the
group.  I expect someone to issue a newgroup for it soon.  If everyone
would follow their example, there would be no need for a formal news
group creation process.

Since there are people like Brian, I am in favor of adopting a formal
procedure.  And I concur with those that feel 25 votes should be a
a required minimum number of votes.  Also that the 'yes' votes should
out-number the 'no' votes by either a 2/3 majority, or 12 votes, whichever
is less.

Now the question becomes, how do we, as a group, adopt the formal procedure?

-- 
del AKA Erik Lindberg                             uunet!pilchuck!fnx!del
                          Who is John Galt?