From: berninge@cs.purdue.edu (James Berninger)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: ok, let me try this again
Date: 11 Nov 1992 13:24:06 -0500
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Purdue University
NNTP-Posting-Host: alice.cs.purdue.edu

thaaang@cwis.unomaha.edu (John Dorrance) writes:
>I know that some people see my contributions to soc.motss as
>frivolous at best...(in fact, I'm sure
>I'll get a few 'hear, hear' postings to this section, if the
>people I'm talking about haven't already put me in their kill
>files).
I don't like to KILL authors, because I might miss something I'm
actually interested in.  I've been *very* tempted to, more than
once, but I resist the urge somehow...

>But anyway, I know that I'm one of the
>much less stringent of adherents to the motss-content rule,
>and that it bothers some people.
Yes...

>Soc.motss is the only newsgroup I read...
I subscribe to about 30, read about 15.

>But soc.motss
>is the only group I actively participate in, and the only one
>I see myself staying with for an extended period of time.
Soc.motss is the group I try to read more of, but there are a
*large* number of topics here that quickly go into my KILL file.
I can't possibly keep up with 200+ articles a day, and I know the
volume of this group alone has turned away a number of people (in
particular, my SO and at least one mutual friend).  My KILL file
currently consists of 76 different subject lines, and that's after I
cleaned up the other day (got rid of defunct subjects).  Nearly all
of the subjects I've killed involve either 1) perpetual flames,
2) back and forth nelliness, or 3) long, drawn out discussions, in
which either the article itself is too long to justify my reading
it, or the subject itself have worn out.  And keeping up with
soc.motss is still a pain, because about 10 new threads begin each
day that get KILLed.  When I first started reading this group, my
KILL file consisted of "/Re:/j", and this worked just fine.  I was
left with about 20 articles a day, and that was fine.  But, I missed
a number of good follow-ups.

>...So whatever soc.motss is to
>you, no matter how many improvements you see that can make it
>a more useful forum for you, it's enough to make someone take
>up computing just to have access to it...
I disagree.  My SO was so "impressed" by the things I'd been saying
about various aspects of Usenet (and other groups I read) that he
was very excited to get an account.  Within a day, he was all over
the Usenet.  The next day, soc.motss was dropped from his list.  The
reason?  Volume.  Not that nearly 1000 articles was too much to
catch up with, but that 200+ per day was too much.  There is the
occasional article in this group that's really interesting to read,
but finding it is the problem.

>And the reason why soc.motss is so important to me is because
>there is so much variety in its offerings.
*Too* much, IMHO.

>It's my main source
>of information about queers; their politics, their celebrities,
>their arts...
Mine too, but I have to dig to find it.

>And the not-necessarily-queer tangents are all
>a part of that, because it gives a chance to really see the
>people here interact on a level other than simple discussion.
>It's through conversation and tangents thereof that we find out
>what everyone is really like, and to pull back and go 'whoa, we
>haven't mentioned queer sex lately' would really cramp the flow
>of the conversation.
"Queer sex" shouldn't be the main focus of this group, nor does it
have to be a consistent topic of discussion.  I get ample
opportunity to see what other motss'ers are "really like" in other
groups -- I've seen several in rec.arts.comics and rec.arts.tv,
among other places.  And as far as I can tell, interaction here
isn't much different than in other groups.  (There are occasional
exceptions, I'll admit.)

>And anyway, the group of people on motss is
>so interesting in general that once one has heard everyone talk
>about strictly queer things, one is so interested in the people
>that one would not object to hearing them talk about other not-
>necessarily straight things.
This may be true for one, but certainly not all.  I don't think that
a large number of regular posters here (you know who you are) are
interesting enough for me to listen to what they have to say on
every subject.  A couple of them, I'd rather not hear from at all.

>I like so many people around here,
>and like to talk to so many of them about different things, that
>it would be inefficient to start 30 private emails about music
>lyrics or whatever. I posted that because I expected I'd get a
>big and widely-varied response from several different people...
I remember that topic.  Quickly into the KILL file...

Jim Berninger                   ______ "This is no 'Whoops!'  This is
berninge@cs.purdue.edu          \    /  an 'Aaaaaaaauuuuuggggghhhh!'"
B0.2 f(~) w- c- g k? s- e r- p   \  /   - Harvey ("Arnold") Fierstein
Green Lantern Fan, Extraordinaire \/      "Torch Song Trilogy"
Newsgroups: soc.motss