From: cbnorman@cayley.uwaterloo.ca ()
Subject: Re: My experience
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 07:22:10 GMT

In article <1992Nov9.164648.13390@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> hades@Dartmouth.Edu writes:
>cbnorman@cayley.uwaterloo.ca () writes:
>
>>Still, the fact remains that, if (hypothetically) Bob comes in with a
>>proposal, it should not matter of Bob has read Usenet for a sum total of
>>1 day.  If Bob sees a need, and makes a proposal which is a good idea,
>>Bob's newsgroup should be created.  If Bob has been reading Usenet since
>>1847, and makes a dumb proposal, his idea should be scrapped.
>
>    Wrong! If anything matters it is how long the person proposing the
>group has been reading UseNet. Without this time spend on the Net there
>is no way for that person to know if what s/he wants to talk about is
>already covered by another news group. And while I agree that "dumb"
>proposals should be scrapped, it is more important that these "dumb"
>proposals never actually make it to the proposal stage thereby only
>serving to waste people's time and money.
>
Believe it or not, I basicly agree with what you're saying.  What I mean
is, if Bob manges to actually propose an incredibly good, well thought
out, amazing idea, which everyone loves, it should not be scrapped
because he is a "newbie" (massive exagerations going on here).  I do
see that the chance of Bob proposing a good newsgroup is very very
low, and he should be encouraged to wait awhile before proposing, but
still, if his proposal is poor it will stand out in the proposal
withing examining Bob's experience.

>hierarchy (ie.  your group's readers) to see what their reaction and/or
>interest would be before you took it to the Net At Large(tm). This,
>IMHO, was a very bad move on your part, and has, as much as anything
>else, effectively killed your proposal.
>
>>I've been reading Usenet for five years
>>I've been reading the .frp hierarchy for two months
>
>    If you have only been reading the r.g.frp.* groups for two months,
>then how can you have any real idea of the kinds of things that are
>discussed within those groups. Two months isn't even long enough to see
>some of of the standard subject "trends" come back around, or even get
>to know the personalities of some of the major posters, which happen to
>be the people you are arguing against. I really cannot begin to
>understand why you would feel "qualified" to propose a new group to this
>hierarchy, especially since, in terms of time spent reading the groups,
>you are a "newbie".
>
Sigh, I hate this part...

I have tried to avoid lately, due to the general disrespect for FidoNet,
getting into a discussion on this topic.  I'd also like anyone who 
agrees with me that experience the experience of someone making a proposal
should not affect how they judge the proposal to hit the 'n' key now, as
this is not relevent to the .campaign discussion.

Despite all the statements I have heard saying that UseNet and FidoNet are
nothing alike...that's a bunch of bullshit.  The mechanics of UseNet are
different, the organization of UseNet is differerent, the look of UseNet
is different, but the *readers* are the same.  The discussions going on in
rec.games.frp.* are no more intelligent, or moronic, or focussed, or 
unfocussed, than those going on in the Fido RPG echos.  What hit me like
a brick when I got involved with .frp is how incredibly *the same* the
newsgroups were to the echos I've been reading for years.

Except.....

There were no campaigns.  A part of FRP echoing which I expected, and had
become totally used to, was not here.  Knowing as I did how it enhanced
the Fido echos I read, I decided to propose the creation of a newsgroup
for campaigns.

Now before everyone starts flaming me about how .archives and .misc perform
"the exact same function"....they don't.  Misc is too fragmented and
general.  Archives is not a campaign-discussion oriented environment.  
Campaigning in .frp is simply spread far too thin.

Xref: sparky news.groups:20891 rec.music.synth:18122