From: hades@coos.dartmouth.edu (Hades)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: My experience
Date: 10 Nov 92 21:18:34 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:

>In article <1992Nov9.164648.13390@dartvax.dartmouth.edu> I wrote:
>>    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.
>>
>Believe it or not, I basicly agree with what you're saying.  What I mean
>is, if Bob manges to actually propose an incredibly good, well thought
>out, amazing idea, which everyone loves, it should not be scrapped
>because he is a "newbie" (massive exagerations going on here).

    I never said that it should be scrapped based on the amount of
experience that Bob has.

>I do see that the chance of Bob proposing a good newsgroup is very very
>low, and he should be encouraged to wait awhile before proposing, but
>still, if his proposal is poor it will stand out in the proposal withing
>examining Bob's experience.

    It has nothing to do with waiting. It has to do with knowledge of
how things actually work in UseNet. You could read newsgroups for years
and still have no idea how any of it works. If you don't know how it
works, then you don't know the proper (largely unwritten) procedure for
proposing/creating a new newsgroup.

>>    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".

>Despite all the statements I have heard saying that UseNet and FidoNet are
>nothing alike...that's a bunch of bullshit.  The mechanics of UseNet are
>different, the organization of UseNet is differerent, the look of UseNet
>is different, but the *readers* are the same.

    When did I mention anything about FidoNet? I don't care if you are
the founder of FidoNet, if you have only been reading rec.games.frp.*
groups for two months, then you are a newbie, and that is all there is
to it. As for the readers being the same, who gives a shit who the
readers are? The topic here is about the mechanics and organization of
UseNet, which you plainly state are different than those of FidoNet; and
no one with your limited experience in UseNet mechanics and organization
should be proposing new newsgroups.

>The discussions going on in rec.games.frp.* are no more intelligent, or
>moronic, or focussed, or unfocussed, than those going on in the Fido RPG
>echos.  What hit me like a brick when I got involved with .frp is how
>incredibly *the same* the newsgroups were to the echos I've been reading
>for years.

    Yeah, so what if discussion topis are basically the same as those
that can be found on FRP related email lists, and Fido RPG echos? This
has nothing to do with newsgroup creation or your experience therein.

>Except.....

>There were no campaigns.  A part of FRP echoing which I expected, and had
>become totally used to, was not here.  Knowing as I did how it enhanced
>the Fido echos I read, I decided to propose the creation of a newsgroup
>for campaigns.

    How in the hell can you read a set of newsgroups for 2 months and
make a claim like this? You know absolutely nothing about the groups in
the rec.games.frp.* hierarchy, and aparantly less about what is
discussed in them.

>Now before everyone starts flaming me about how .archives and .misc perform
>"the exact same function"....they don't.  Misc is too fragmented and
>general.  Archives is not a campaign-discussion oriented environment.  
>Campaigning in .frp is simply spread far too thin.

    The mere fact that you can make these types of statements only shows
exactly how much of a newbie you are, to both rec.games.frp.* and to
UseNet. My suggestion is that you drop the proposal now, and try reading
the groups for a while before you jump to these kinds of conclusions.

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