From: forbes@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (Scott Forbes)
Subject: Re: do we need rec.arts.startrek.dsn?
Organization: Usenet Sports Programming Network
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 00:55:59 GMT

tlynch@cco.caltech.edu (Timothy W. Lynch) writes:
_>                                         [...] Even if you had picture-perfect
_> support for the structure you propose now, your proposed B5 and DS9 groups
_> wouldn't be in place *at all* for six weeks minimum, and the transition 
_> wouldn't be close to complete for probably two months beyond that.

Should be "seven weeks minimum."  Five-day waiting period after the
vote results are announced....  And, of course, I'd challenge you (Tim)
to do it in less than twelve.  :-)

For reference:  The proposal that created rec.arts.startrek.current
took about, oh, 30 weeks from start to finish ("start" being an article
posted in mid-August 1991, and "finish" being the rmgroup of r.a.s
somwhere around April 1992).


While we're beating the subject to death, let me throw out a few ideas:

  *  Whether or not DS9 survives as a television series, it is (at
     the moment) generating enough netnews traffic to qualify as a
     viable USENET newsgroup.  I'm going to make a few assumptions
     which you may challenge at your leisure:

     1.  DS9 will last several years as a television series.
	 After watching the first season of TNG, I firmly believe
	 that a series called _Star Trek: Watching Paint Dry_
	 would last at least two seasons in syndication.

     2.  DS9 will generate a lot of discussion here on USENET,
	 possibly up to half the bandwidth of the newsgroup(s),
         until that point in the distant future (1994?) when TNG
	 stops producing new episodes.

     3.  Quality of discussion drops rapidly as a function of
	 bandwidth; groups with 300 articles/day suffer from a
	 "needle in haystack" problem when compared to groups
	 with, say, 50 articles/day.

     The conclusion:  DS9 traffic will be a Problem.


  *  Given the above, how do we deal with this Problem?  There is a
     long list of dead proposals that attempt to split r.a.s (and/or
     the r.a.s.* hierarchy) into r.a.s.tos, r.a.s.tng, r.a.s.ds9, etc.
     Why do these proposals fail, you ask?

     1.  Too much overlap among the groups.  If, for example, you
	 wanted to discuss the character development of Miles O'Brien
	 (a character in both TNG and DS9), where would you do it?
	 If you want to compare Kirk and Picard?  If you want to talk
	 about how Scotty has changed over the years?  There are too
	 many discussions that don't attach to a particular TV series
	 all that easily.

	 To a lesser extent r.a.s.tech and r.a.s.fandom will combat
	 this problem, now that they exist:  Some topics that are not
	 specific to a given TV series have groups of their own (e.g.,
	 warp drives, transporters, conventions, actor discussions).
	 But there are still plenty of topics in the overlap.

     2.  There are also gaps between the groups:  Discussion of the
	 animated Star Trek series, for example, has no good place in
	 a TOS/TNG/DS9 hierarchy.  Discussion of the 25th anniversary
	 ST video is also hard to find under this scheme.

	 The bandwidth of TAS and 25th anniversary videos, however, is
	 significantly lower than TNG or DS9, and could easily fall
	 into a r.a.s.misc group.

     3.  USENET newsgroups are well nigh indestructable once created,
	 and there is major (excuse me, _m_a_j_o_r) resistance to creating
	 newsgroups for discussing something as temporary and short-
	 lived as a syndicated television series.  The only newsgroup
	 in existence today based on a single television series is
	 rec.arts.drwho [*], and it exists for historical reasons.

	 Fans of the series _Quantum Leap_ have been trying for years
	 to get their own newsgroup, without success, and not for lack
	 of effort.  Fans of the "Disney Afternoon" series of shows
	 (you know, DuckTales, Chip & Dale's Rescue Rangers, etc.?)
	 lost a newsgroup vote due to international protests (!) over
	 creating a worldwide newsgroup to discuss an American show.

	 In short, creating a newsgroup to discuss DS9, a show that
	 *isn't even on the air yet*, is going to be a hard sell.


[*] Yes, I know about alt.tv.simpsons, alt.tv.tiny-toon and a host of
    other "alt" newsgroups discussing a single television series.
    "Alt" is an alternative hierarchy with different rules for creating
    newsgroups; suffice to say that we're not *in* the "alt" hierarchy,
    so there.  :-)  Half the net doesn't get the "alt" groups.


  *  Much as I hate to admit it, the concept of r.a.s.current isn't
     *working*.  Newbies just don't grasp the concept; about a third
     of the articles in r.a.s.current belong in r.a.s.misc; and I'm not
     up to the task of educating (and re-educating) thousands of people
     on the subject of where their articles should be posted.  This is
     a sad, sad comment on the amount of time the average netter is
     willing to devote to Learning the Net, and no amount of articles
     titled "HEY! YOU THERE!" are going to raise that level.

     We can advance the argument that people *should* read the FAQ,
     learn what they're doing before posting, floss after meals, etc.,
     but that doesn't mean it's going to happen -- no matter how large
     our effort to educate people may be.  I'm starting to store the
     "people should learn more" argument in the same box I keep Mike's
     "better newsreaders are the Ultimate Solution" position paper.


Still reading?  Good.  Now I'm going to throw out yet another proposal,
one that partially addresses the above problems:

create			rec.arts.startrek.original-cast
rename *.current to	rec.arts.startrek.next-gen
create			rec.arts.startrek.deep-space-9

These groups are based not on the series, but on the cast of characters.
Discussions of TOS, TAS, movies I through VI, TOS-based books, etc.,
go in r.a.s.original-cast.  It's a fine distinction, but it makes an
interesting difference.

Kirk vs. Picard - type discussions will have to go to r.a.s.misc, which
is where they should be now.  "Crossover" discussions, unless the full
cast of TNG meets the full cast of DS9, go with the majority (this has
the disadvantage of splitting discussion of Worf's two-part TNG/DS9
crossover across two newsgroups, but I see no way to improve on this).

Note that rec.arts.startrek.next-gen loses DS9 traffic from *.current
but picks up "old" TNG discussions from *.misc.  This could result in
r.a.s.next-gen being larger than r.a.s.current -- but there's a lot of
discussion in r.a.s.current right now that *should* be in r.a.s.misc,
so all this really does is change the group to match the traffic.

I also think newbies are more likely to understand automatically which
newsgroup is the correct one under this hierarchy, which IMHO is an
apparent advantage over the current system.

Enough.  Questions, comments, flames?
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Scott Forbes		AT&T Network Wireless Systems		==---======
Naperville, IL		forbes@icbm.att.com			 =========
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