From: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (The Napoleon of Crime)
Subject: Re: META: Some more RAC Split thoughts
Reply-To: moriarty@tc.fluke.COM (The Napoleon of Crime)
Organization: The Institute for Criminal Science, Gizmonics Control
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 1992 01:58:01 GMT

In <1992Apr10.043205.18433@spool.cs.wisc.edu> rawdon@cabrales.cs.wisc.edu (Michael Rawdon) writes:

>Are we sick of this yet? :-)  Even *I'm* getting tired of my position on
>this subject! :-)

Damn straight.  This is a soapbox that gets particularly tiring to climb on
and off.

>Better newsreaders *will* help you, personally.  At least, they did me.

I'm another nn user who uses it for getting through heavy net traffic
easily.  While I can sympathize with those who complain that they don't have
rn or nn or trn, I have to point out that Usenet is, to a large extent, a
network designed for technical people.  It was started for and by the Unix
community, and comes without the frills of a lot of the larger commercial
networks.  My first thought, on seeing "But I don't use <better newsreader
name>" is, *learn*.  It takes a little work, but the benefits are vast.
(Harmon T. Vast, who gives out a free 18-year-old Twinkee to each trn user,
after completing a pop quiz on Larry Wall.)

Simarly, for those who say {nn,trn,rn} isn't available at their site, I've
often wanted to make a similar statement: install and compile it.  However,
I have to admit that this is a somewhat-unreasonable request.  As
Usenet/Internet has grown, it's gone from an audience of computer people to
a much larger membership, and expecting everyone to know the mechanics of
running uudecode and cc is probably unreasonable.  

PS  Let's continue with the keywords.  This is good stuff.

---------

As to the whole argument about a split: I'm for it -- *IF* it could meet
these qualifications (here we go again...)

1)  Would be a division that would actually lead *large* numbers of readers
    to read only one (or some) of the split groups, and not all.  In other
    words, where the split does not result in most of the readers having to
    read two groups, instead of one.

2)  A clear, non-confusing division between the groups, which really
    reflects readership habits.  My major problem with r.a.c.dc and 
    r.a.c.marvel (and even r.a.c.indies) is that I think very few people
    read comics solely by what company publishes the comix.  Similarly, does
    Sandman fall under r.a.c.superheros?  If so, a lot of people who want to
    avoid discussions about Marvel or DC universe questions will continue to
    read this group because of this, even though the rest of the group's
    traffic would be of no interest to them.

3)  That the divisions will stand up over time.  While I feel that a split
    along the lines of r.a.c.x-mutants or whatever would fulfill the above
    requirements, what happens if/when the Marvel mutant books drop to a
    lower popularity level in the next five years?  There was a hell of
    furor to create r.a.tv.twin-peaks years ago.  How much traffic would
    there be there now?  How much after the movie has come and gone in a
    year? 

    This has been a tenet of the Usenet new group voting scheme from the
    word Go, and it definitely has to be met here.  For short-term
    discussion groups, the custom is to create an alt. group (or better yet,
    a mailing list.)

Honest-to-God, if someone could come up with something that could meet these
criteria, I'd go for it.  Rec.arts.comic.strips is a good example of
something that meets the criteria; I was skeptical at first that it had the
popularity to have its own newsgroup -- obviously an ill-founded worry now.
R.a.c.superheros is getting there, but there are the problems as mentioned
above. 

Until then, keywords and newsreaders for me.

                           "Van Damme and Van Damme in 'Van Damme You All to
                            Hell!'"
                                           -- Tom Servo
---
                                        Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET:     moriarty@tc.fluke.COM
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CREDO:        You gotta be Cruel to be Kind...
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