From: xtkmg@trentu.ca (Kate Gregory)
Subject: Re: soc.motss.*
Organization: Trent University, Ontario
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 22:46:03 GMT

I spend more than my fair share of time in news.groups, and have
witnessed several splits and re-orgs. From that perspective (and from
the perspective of a dedicated motss reader and poster) I'd like to
comment on some suggestions.

First, formation of a soc.motss.misc: There are plenty of
examples of foo.bar/foo.bar.abc groups. Try rec.boats/rec.boats.paddle
for example. The key is: do the subgroups cover the vast majority
of the traffic originally held in the parent, or just one subtopic. It
isn't fair to the power boat and sailboats people to tell them they
are now "misc" just because we paddlers didn't want to share the
group with their overwhelming traffic. So proposals that hope to
divide all the existing traffic should include a "misc"; those that
are just splitting off a small well defined part need not worry
about renaming the parent.

Second, the name "advocacy". Precedent has been set that equates
"advocacy" with "flame", and specifically flame about the intrinsic
worth of the subject of the main group. For example, 
comp.sys.amiga.advocacy is the
(only) place in the amiga cluster where folks can discuss whether
Amigas are better than Macs and so on. Soc.motss.advocacy would, by
that convention, be the place for the one topic of conversation we
disallow here. I recommend activism for the selfish reason that
I use /politics/h:j in my kill file to ditch the stuff crossposted
to a.p.h, t.p.misc, ba.p, ca.p and so on.

Third, the name "info". This too is getting a code meaning across the
net. (Those who object to this reorg using established code meanings
in favour of intuitive meanings are referred to the many .d groups --
this is not intuitive but it is well established). The usual meaning
of info is "moderated group for announcements (not necessarily from
any official source) and no discussion". The moderator sets followups
to the .d group if there is one, or to the parent group. Newspaper
articles would probably belong here, btw. If I moderated an info
group I would also allow short request for information that had
not been posted recently; for example the first request for the
agenda of the MOW.

Fourth, changing the base name. This should be done before any
subgroups are created, lest a mishmash of votes rename only
some subgroups. I personally prefer motss for a variety of reasons,
not the least of which is its inclusiveness. I feel it would
be counterproductive to confuse the issue of creating new subgroups
with the issue of changing the base name.

Since everyone has been including their preferred splits,
I'll list mine too. They would not be designed to cover all
the topics, so soc.motss would not be renamed to soc.motss.misc.
I would create soc.motss.info (moderated), and soc.motss.activism.
I would expect dish, chitchat, coming out stories, dealing with
parents, and birth announcements :-) along with all the old familiar
traffic to stay in soc.motss as always. The activists could
congregate in the smaller group that was just for them, though
I expect most would continue to read the parent group. Then in the
wake of a successful subgroup creation, someone is likely to suggest
another excellent idea for easily compartmentalized traffic. I think
this incremental approach is far better than trying to divide it
all right now.

Kate
who suggested soc.motss.chat well over a year ago, as a joke, and
is not about to support it now...