From: leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl (Leo Breebaart)
Subject: Re: TNMS and alt.music.rush (was: Re: Rush's worst song)
Reply-To: leo@ph.tn.tudelft.nl
Organization: Delft University of Technology
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 09:22:07 GMT

jaeger@buphy.bu.edu (Gregg Jaeger) writes:

> I think there is one good reason for the existence of this newsgroup:
> it allows people to _discover_ TNMS (The National Midnight Star), the
> mailing list. Many people find this newsgroup without knowing about
> TNMS. Once they find out about TNMS they can add their names to the 
> list and discover higher quality discussions. I don't think making
> alt.music.rush was a lousy idea for exactly that reason.

Sorry Gregg, but that is a *ridiculous* reason (and please: this is
not a flame, just a very strong disagreement).

Usenet has the potential to be something great & wonderful all by
itself, and it often is: its newsgroups are valid forms of electronic
communication that can be useful, entertaining or both.

Saying that a.m.rush is justified as a newsgroup because it may bring
people in contact with TNMS is screwed, upside-down logic. A newsgroup
should be judged on its own merits *as a newsgroup*. What you are
saying is: "well hey, a.m.rush may be useless, but at least it causes
people to find out about TNMS, where the *real* action is happening."

Meanwhile, the entire net winds up with (paying for) a mediocre group,
and I won't even mention the endless flamewars and discussions and
wastes of everybody's time we had because originally folks wanted this
to be *rec*.music.rush.  (Funny, how I see almost nobody of those
original r.m.rush champions posting here today -- makes you wonder why
the fuck they bothered in the first place).

Back then, when we politely pointed out: "but there is already a
mailing list", we got flamed to death and accused of wanting to deny
people the right to their very own newsgroup, and eventually the alt
group was created even though the 'real' vote for rec.music.rush
failed miserably. And now you come and tell me the newsgroup is a Good
Thing because it shows people the way to the mailing list. Can you
understand that this ticks me off a bit?

Also, there are so many other ways in which TNMS could advertise its
existence. It already appears on the popular List of Mailing Lists,
they could advertise on rec.music.info, they could post occasional
pointers to the list to groups like rec.music.misc or alt-rock-n-roll,
they could post a FAQ to news.answers, the possibilities are endless!

But all that advertising is currently *not* happening, and people tend
to conveniently forget there are still large parts of the net that do
not get the alt.hierarchy, so TNMS is still missing out on many
potential members, who *really* have no easy way of finding out about
that list.  Strange how nobody seems to care about them.

> Not to mention that it allows an alternative channel of
> communication when there are problems with TNMS at
> rush@syrinx.umd.edu ...

There you go again. Now you're justifying a newsgroup because there
were (temporary?) problems with a mailing list distribution! What kind
of reason is *that*? Shucks, my site has often been down lately, why
don't I just create alt.leo.breebaart so that people can reach me there?

The proliferation of alt. groups is already growing so large that it
gets difficult to find a resource, especially for new netters. Do you
think that when confronted with dozens and dozens and dozens of
newsgroups that people are easily going to notice alt.music.rush?
Forget it...

Oh well. Now that I have come this close to predicting the Imminent
Death of the Net (film at eleven), I'll quickly stop before I start
dragging the Nazi's into this discussion.

Just wanted to get this off my chest.

-- 
Leo Breebaart  (leo @ ph.tn.tudelft.nl)