From: spencer@burn.Princeton.EDU (S. Spencer Sun)
Subject: Re: off-topic discussions (was Re: Novelty time!)
Reply-To: spencer@phoenix.princeton.edu (S. Spencer Sun)
Organization: Live Organ Transplants
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 11:56:21 GMT

In article <1992Nov4.203430.1939@oracle.us.oracle.com>, dgilly@us.oracle.com (Daniel Gilly) writes:
>In article <37871@hoptoad.uucp> laura@hoptoad.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes:
>
>>Whatever happened to ``whatever any Gayperson wants to discuss
>>is by definition a motss issue?''
>
>[mentions the two main views of the purposes of soc.motss]
>
>As for my feelings toward postings of "little or no motss-relevance,"
>I'm ambivalent.  I do occasionally enjoy vegging out on so-called
>mindless threads about music, or "is so-and-so attractive/gay/etc?"
>When I'm not in the mood for them, I can always press 'k'.
>
>[list of favorite topics removed]
>
>Finally, the advice I've so often heard:   "if you don't like what
>you're reading, post something that you do" has worked for me.

The "you can always press K" and "make a kill file" and "post something
you want to talk about" suggestions are all good ones, up to a point.
I don't think it's fair to say "Don't like cascades all over the comp.*
groups?  Just put /alt.cascade/:hj (or whatever) in your kill file!" or
"Don't like postings about screwing sheep in soc.culture.*?  Just put
the titles/authors in your kill file!" are particulaly well thought out
or far-looking suggestions.

As implied before, I don't agree with the idea that "Anything a motss
person says is motss relevant."  Is there any good reason that interesting
music lyrics e.g. have to be correlated with sexual orientation?  If so,
fine, I guess it belongs here, but explain the correlation if it isn't
obvious.  If not, well, why not use a music group then?

I'm a very busy junior in college.  I generally enjoy the things I
choose to read in this newsgroup, but.  What's the group get, 200-400
messages a day?  I read maybe 20 of them.  Culling a few threads out of
the vast number that arrive in the news spool can be tedious at times.
After a certain point, and considering that I read other high-volumne
newsgroups, "just avoid the ones you don't want to read" is not an
efficient strategy.

This is not a BBS.  This is USENET.  Some structure has been set up to
try and partition the myriad discussion topics into manageable
divisions.  It would be nice if people followed them more accurately.

Of course, by the same token, this is USENET.  I certainly am not in a
position to dictate to other people what they will do, but I can hope they
will read what I say and at least think that I'm not completely insane.
Most of you will probably ignore me, and half of those that are still
reading this far will probably flame me.  That's life on the net, I
guess...  :-)

-----
sss/PU'94 Dept of CS (spencer@phoenix.princeton.edu)/JvNCnet (spencer@jvnc.net)
"I once believed in causes too / I had my pointless point of view / And life
went on no matter who was wrong or right..."  [Billy Joel, "Angry Young Man"]

(hm... my sigs are randomly selected from a list each time I post an
article.  Rather appropriate one...)

Newsgroups: soc.motss,alt.politics.homosexuality,co.politics