From: karish@pangea.Stanford.EDU (Chuck Karish)
Subject: Re: rec.moto.harley
Organization: Mindcraft, Inc.
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 01:29:24 GMT

In article <1992Jul22.211619.16488@wpi.WPI.EDU> mick@maxine.wpi.edu
(Ravi Narayan) writes:
>	if people who *want* r.m.h *want* my
>	vote, *they* have to make out a case as to why the group is
>	needed. "just because we need it" is not enough reason for me.

For just about every other new group I've ever seen
discussed, a demonstration that the new group is
*wanted* by a sizeable constituency is adequate.

>:- and the prevailing wisdom tells us that the proposed
>:- newsgroup would be cheaper for the net at large than the existing
>:- mailing list.
>
>	if this were true (supported by valid statistics) i would
>	certainly understand the creation of the group.

A newsgroup would probably be more expensive, netwide,
in terms of communications resources.  It would be
cheaper in the resources of which there's a critical
shortage: administrative attention.  With a newsgroup
there's no need for a list administrator who keeps
track of 250 subscribers and no headaches for mail
administrators on dozens of subscribers' machines
trying to sort out bounced mail.

If you've never managed a big mailing list, try it some
time.  It's a lot more work than just editing a subscriber
list once a week.

>:- I also haven't seen anyone make a decent case for the assumption that
>:- if r.m.h is created, all Harley riders will cease to read or participate
>:- in r.m.
>
>	the fact that rec.moto does have quite a few harley riders among
>	its readers is a sure foundation for such a case.

It's a necessary condition but not sufficient to make
the case.  They can't leave if they're not there, but
the fact that they're there doesn't mean that they'll
disappear.  Many of the r.m participants also receive
the harley mailings.

>	i do not however believe that rec.moto is going to lose its
>	harley riders due to the formation of rec.moto, nor do i believe
>	that has any pertinence to the formation of r.m.h what is more
>	important is to ascertain that the group is created due to a
>	collective need of a section of concerned participants, rather
>	than as a tool to further the harley-jap bike divide.

The claim all along has been that at least part of the
motivation for segregating Harley discussions is to
mitigate some of the effects of that division.  I don't
see any need to question peoples' motivations.

>:- The anti-Harley flames have been cited as a major source of annoyance by
>:- several proponents of r.m.h.  Exactly what you meant by "extreme, rare,
>:- crappy flames"
>
>	how many of the proponents have cited it?

It's not as much an immediate issue now as it was a year
and a half ago, because the Harley folks aren't around
in rec.motorcycles to provoke flames or to return them.

>   how do such flames
>	compare against the general amount of flaming observed on
>	rec.moto and other groups?

They're consistent and predictable and very tiresome.
They add nothing to the quality of interaction in
rec.motorcycles.  A comparison may say more about the
lameness of other groups in failing to find a way around
their problems than about the merits of r.m.h.

>   why do quite a few h-d riders still
>	read and post to rec.moto?

Why do I read both Cycle News and Motorcyclist?  Why
do I read both rec.music.bluenote and sci.geo.geology?
They might be interested in some things that
aren't directly related to Harleys.  Or they can't
get the mailing list and want to talk about bikes.

>   why do posts of the form "I am proud
>	to be a Harley rider and would like us Harley riders to stick to
>	rec.moto" appear every now and then?

I've never seen one.  I've seen posts from Chuck Rogers,
who is not a Harley rider but who appreciates Harleys,
suggesting that Harley discussions are welcome on
rec.motorcycles.  I've seen many posts from Harley
riders on rec.motorcycles, but I don't recall that
any of them were strongly in favor of keeping all
Harley-related discussions in rec.motorcycles as opposed
to the Harley list or rec.motorcycles.harley.

>   extreme, crappy flames are
>	flames that appear in rec.moto containing a few obscenities
>	expressed against some pet peeve ranging from h-ds to lance
>	holst or what have you, and these are pretty rare.

So what?  There was almost no overt racism visible in
the town I grew up in.  There were also no blacks;
they'd been driven out years before.
--

    Chuck Karish          karish@mindcraft.com
    (415) 323-9000 x117   karish@forel.stanford.edu