From: irilyth@fenris.claremont.edu (Josh Smith)
Subject: Re: rec.games.strategic controversy
Originator: irilyth@fenris
Organization: HMC Academic Computing Services
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 19:04:35 GMT

In a prior article, Justin (sizone!justin@ee.ryerson.ca) writes:
> I think there is another problem here.  Apparently people who play the
> wargamer/simulation brand games, and who no doubt have only a minimal
> interest in seeing posts about checkers, shogi, etc., except those of
> us who want to read about checkers, shogi, etc., to have to wade through
> all their posts.  So far every objection has come from a "gamer" --
> 
> So I guess I have to ask:  Since you don't play these games, why do you
> care? 

As a "gamer", I don't care whether or not people post about checkers, shogi,
etc. to rec.games.board, because I won't read such messages, just as I now
don't read messages about Battletech, 1830, Axis and Allies, etc. I read
about 5% of rec.games.board, despite the fact that I call myself a "gamer",
and don't have a problem doing so. When the games I do play come up for
discussion, I join in; until then, I ignore everything else and keep my eyes
open.

Incidentally, the 5% figure does not include the recent wave of news.groups
cross-postings. (grin)

> And why do you insist that we read your posts?

I don't insist that you read anything. I don't read the posts about Btech,
1830, or A&A either. This doesn't interfere with my enjoyment of the group.
Maybe I'm strange in this, but I don't have a problem scanning through a
screenful of subject lines, marking those that look interesting (very few).

> (Are you aware of how hard it is to accurately kill 90% of the posts in a
> newsgroup? Someone mentioned "only takes 5 minutes" -- but that is
> UNREASONABLE,

I am, because I do. It's not hard if you use a threaded newsreader.
Condolences if you don't/can't. Five minutes is very unreasonable, but is
also not an accurate estimate. I can see the subject lines from 20 messages
on a screen, and take maybe 2 - 10 seconds to scan for subjects I'm
interested in, hitting a key to select them. I then hit X to kill everything
else, and read the messages I've selected. If I screw up, I can get the
thread selection screen back, with or without the messages I didn't mark the
first time. So I burn maybe fifteen seconds max getting rid of everything I
don't want to read per twenty threads--and each thread may well have more
than one new message posted, which only increases the quantity of drek I can
ignore in a fixed time.

The summary here is that threaded newsreaders are from God, and perhaps half
of the groups I subscribe to would be entirely unreadable without one. If
you can't get one installed on your system, I don't know what to tell you
except to quote The Man in Black: "Get used to disappointment."

What I mostly oppose is splitting the existing rec.games.board traffic into
multiple groups, because I don't think that's necessary (and the only people
calling for it seem to be people who don't read any of the messages
currently there anyway). I have no problem with creating a new group to
discuss topics which are currently not discussed on rec.games.board,
presumably because people don't feel comfortable posting there, but I'm not
sure whether this is the best solution (compared to starting a mailing list
or writing a good FAQ sheet for r.g.b). I will vote NO on proposals to
subdivide the existing rec.games.board, but am neutral about proposals to
create groups to handle a need that is not being met.

The newsreader I describe above, btw, is trn, available via anonymous ftp
from ftp.uu.net:/news/readers/trn for Unix machines. I don't know much about
options on VMS or other platforms.
-- 
original text by Josh Smith    ::   Comments, questions, etc. welcomed
irilyth@fenris.claremont.edu   ::   #include <std.disclaimer>
"If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you'll
look like a dummy and people will try to catch you because, hey, free dummy."
Newsgroups: rec.games.board