From: dseal@armltd.co.uk (David Seal)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: rec.games.strategic controversy
Date: 27 Aug 92 14:49:15 GMT
Distribution: news
Organization: A.R.M. Ltd, Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambs, UK

In article <5820@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at> mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at
(Markus Stumptner) writes:

>From article <1992Aug26.173342.26311@ists.ists.ca>, by os9ug@gkcl.ists.ca (OS-9 User Group):
>> Apparently people who play the
>> wargamer/simulation brand games, and who no doubt have only a minimal
>> interest in seeing posts about checkers, shogi
>
>"Apparently".  "No doubt".  Killer phrases.  There have been posts
>from several people who explicitly wrote that they are interested in
>both these categories.  Again, don't enforce your narrow interests on
>others.

Hold it... if you're interested in two distinct things on Usenet, the
general rule is that you read two newsgroups! There's no need to insist on
the two subjects being in the same group just because that serves your
interests - it's a lot easier for you to read two groups than it is for
others to disentangle two subjects from each other in the same group,
especially if they don't have a good newsreader. (And let's face it: it's a
fact of life that many people don't.)

Besides, there are other possible reasons to want to keep separate subjects
in separate newgroups besides the difficulty of sorting through the posts.
For instance, my site doesn't get the "rec" hierarchy in general, but does
get a feed for specifically requested groups from it. I'm interested in the
"abstract" games, but not very interested in the "simulation" games. Given
the general mix of postings on rec.games.board - i.e. 95%+ stuff that I'm
not interested in (I've seen it occasionally at other sites) - there's no
way I can ask for our site to get it. If there were a group with a higher
interest-to-non-interest ratio, I could request it.

I'm not saying that every possible narrow interest should have its own
newsgroup - that would be ridiculous! But the fact that someone has broad
interests is not in itself a good reason against splitting: they can quite
easily subscribe to all the groups after the split. What really matters is
whether there is enough interest in the separate subjects to justify
multiple newsgroups: if there is, the group should split; if not, it
shouldn't.

There are two good ways to establish the existence of such interest: either
start up a mailing list and see whether it gets big enough to justify a
newsgroup, or simply hold a vote for the newsgroup - if there isn't
sufficient interest or there is too much opposition, it won't pass.

Since someone is starting the RFD/CFV procedure going, let's do it the
second way. And if we could possibly avoid emotive phrases like "enforce
your narrow interests on others" during the discussion, it would avoid a lot
of unnecessary flaming. If people were trying to ban discussion of some type
of game currently covered by rec.games.board by not having a group in which
to discuss them, such words might be appropriate; as it is, they aren't.

And just to forestall anybody who finds a game that isn't covered in the
current proposals, may I suggest the group re.games.board.misc, for any
games that don't fit in the other groups? :-)

David Seal
dseal@armltd.co.uk

All opinions are mine only...