Newsgroups: nz.general
Subject: Re: nz.waffle??
From: dgd@kcbbs.gen.nz (David Dix)
Date: Thu, 01 Oct 92 06:03:52 GMT
 <1992Sep28.065825.13614@acme.gen.nz> <10092273.60508.24627@kcbbs.gen.nz><1992Oct01.060352.20368@acme.gen.nz>
Organization: Kappa Crucis Unix BBS, Auckland, NZ

kilroy@acme.gen.nz (earthbound misfit, I) writes:
>If you want to create newsgroups on a completely ad-hoc basis, then I'd
>*humbly* suggest that nz isn't the place for them.

No, not ad-hoc but something that gives new nz newsgroup proposals a better
chance of coming into existance.

>The nz heirarchy already has some guidelines for newsgroup creation, if you
>want to change those then randomly creating newsgroups to make your point
>probably isn't the best way to go about it.

Guidelines yes, but that is all they are and perhaps its time we seriously
looked at reviewing how we create new nz newsgroups. 
The existing guidelines simply do not work since just about _all_ new nz
newsgroup proposals have failed.
I do not think that randomly creating new newsgroups is a solution either, but
some relaxing of the current guidelines is a must to prevent others taking
that sort of action.

>If you want have an alternative newsgroup heirarchy where
>anything goes, then think up a suitable name (hey, how about 'alt'?[*]), and
>go for it. If enough people think it's a good idea, it'll succeed.

Never said I wanted an alternative newsgroup hierarchy :-)

>While the current system for nz may be a little cumbersome for what is a
>fairly small set of newsgroups, I don't think requiring at least 25 people to
>want the newsgroup is a bad thing. Personally, I'd argue that if you can't get
>that many people to want your group you should be using a mailing list anyway.

Yes, requiring 25 people is not reasonable. Have you ever looked at who it is
that writes messages in the nz newsgroups? So far this year I count no more
than 51 different people posting messages in nz.general AND most of them 
seem to be involved in either university computer depts or are computer
staff in other organisations.
If we want to keep usenet in NZ a nice quiet little service for a select
few people then we are going the right way about it. Having to get approval
from near 50% of the people who currently contribute to news to get a new
newsgroup started is certainly not reasonable.
I do realise there are probably many 000s of people in NZ with access to news
but from the past nz newsgroup postings most of them do not appear to be
interested in contributing.
Perhaps making the process of creating a new nz newsgroup much simpler would
be a step in the direction of encouraging more people to get involved.

And 'using a mailing list' - have you forgotten that email is how the
universities make their $ from the rest of us?

>[*] remember, alt is the sort of place where Carasso lives. Do you really want
>   that for an nz heirarchy?

:-)
                                                               *
dgd@kcbbs.gen.nz (David Dix), Fidonet 3:772/90.
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Newsgroups: nz.general