From: hades@coos.dartmouth.edu (Hades)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: My experience
Date: 9 Nov 92 16:46:48 GMT
Reply-To: hades@Dartmouth.Edu
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Disclaimer: Personally, I really don't care who you think I speak for.
Moderator: Rec.Arts.Comics.Info

cbnorman@cayley.uwaterloo.ca () writes:

>A while ago I proposed a new newsgroup to be entitled
>rec.games.frp.campaign.  At the time which I proposed the group, I had
>been reading news.groups for a period of one month, which is quite a bit
>less than the six month reccomended time period.  I now see the wisdom
>in waiting....

    Yes, there is much to be gained by reading news.groups for a while
before you make proposals, especially before you take on the arduous
task of running a newsgroup creation RFD/CFV.

>He then turned back and said that I was ignoring the real question (despite
>the fact that he had never asked this question before), namely "how long
>have you been reading .frp?"

    I'm not going to get into this aspect of the debate, but he did ask
how long you had been reading rec.games.frp.*.

>I admit that my innitial proposal was badly conceived, and would best have
>been left in the back of my mind until I had gained some more news.groups
>experience (I only joined this group to make my proposal.  Up until now
>I've never had any desire to create a new newsgroup).

    FYI, you are not creating a new newsgroup. What you are doing is
running an information poll to see if there is enough support/readers
for your proposal, so that the readers, as a group, would be better
served by the creation of a newsgroup rather than a mailing list.

>However, though my proposal was innitially poor, it has greatly matured.
>In these past few weeks, it has undergone a baptism of fire (or I should
>perhaps say, a baptism of flames).  I have quickly gained, to be frank,
>a whole shitload of experience.

    This is true, but I don't know if all of the experience you have
gained is actually good.

>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.

>Up until this point, whether Bob's idea is good or bad has been
>determined by a length discussion.  Bob's idea might start out rough,
>but in the discussion it may be refined, and in the end emerge as an
>excellent proposal.

    Yes, this is true, but this formative stage should take place in
those newsgroups whose reader's have a vested interest in whether or not
a particular group is created. In your case, you are basically talking
about adding another group to an already existing hierarchy of groups,
and you chose not to "test" your proposal on the readers of that
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".

--
-Hades (Brian V. Hughes) 
	"Hey, we're on the Cutting Edge!"
	"Too bad we're not on the side you keep." - Mr. Boffo
Newsgroups: news.groups