From: twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce)
Subject: Re: PROPOSAL: alt.fan.anne-rice
Organization: Elitist Usenet Administrators, Turkey Division
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 22:05:40 GMT

In article <forb0004.133.724104671@student.tc.umn.edu> forb0004@student.tc.umn.edu (Eric Forbis ) writes:

>In article <Bz2KFG.DCn@unix.amherst.edu> twpierce@unix.amherst.edu (Tim Pierce) writes:
>
>>If someone can demonstrate why rec.arts.books would not be an
>>appropriate group, then I'll concede that question.  It's not a
>>Catch-22.
>
>When you've set the stage so you lose either way, it _is_ a catch-22.

But that's not the case, hence it isn't a Catch-22.

>Also, 
>rec.arts.books is a general, low level discussion group. I could as easily 
>knock out all the soc.culture.* groups by pointing out there was a soc.
>culture, and thus no need to form another group; I doubt that they'd be 
>impressed with your logic.

Especially since there is no such group.

>Basic Fact #1 is that I, and probably quite a few others, don't _want_ to 
>read rec.arts.books. That alone is reason enough. Rec.arts.books is a 
>relatively busy group, and sifting through posts for relevent messages can 
>be a royal pain; some things invariably are missed, a frustrating 
>experience.

Actually, I can believe that.  Rec.arts.books *is* a pretty chaotic
place.

>Finally, a general problem with usenet (less so with altnet) is that many 
>users don't know where to find information; my site receives 4900+ groups, 
>an enormous amount of material to comb through. An alt.fan.anne-rice group 
>is clearly labeled and would attract interested readers. 

An interesting suggestion.  On this system, we carry nearly five
hundred alt groups and slightly over nine hundred in the Big Seven.
That's *half* as many alt groups as all the others combined, and we
don't even get a full feed of alt (though our Usenet feed is pretty
complete).  With Anne Rice, at least you'd be pretty sure that the
newsgroup wouldn't be under comp, news, or sci.  But I digress ...

>>I still doubt the utility of an alt.fan.anne-rice newsgroup, for
>>reasons I've already explained.
>
>You criticized it as not being able to support a list group; how did you get 
>that bee in your bonnet? To begin with, you have no grounds for asserting 
>that a list mail group is untenable, as you did in another post; no one has 
>tried it.

I quote from an article which not only appeared in this thread, but
one to which *you* responded:

| From: C96@vm.urz.uni-heidelberg.de (Alexander EICHENER)
| Subject: Re: PROPOSAL: alt.fan.anne-rice
| Message-ID: <168B8FB26.C96@vm.urz.uni-heidelberg.de>
| Date: Wed, 09 Dec 92 17:51:31 CET
|
| But please remeber, there was, once
| upon a time, but still in this year, an Anne Rice mailing list - and it
| died for lack of traffic.

>No one _wants_ to try it; they're a pain in the duff! I subscribe 
>to 4 listservers; my mailbox is a tangled mess from hell even with periodic 
>housekeeping. Adding another group this way is the last thing in the world 
>I want to do.

Well, that's funny.  There are literally thousands of mailing lists
out there which are flourishing.  There seems to be nothing about the
*concept* of a mailing list which is driving people away; people just
aren't interested enough in Anne Rice to warrant a mailing list on
that topic.

>Since you seem to be about the only consistent critic of the proposed group, 
>I'd say that it looks like we have good grounds to start the group.

I doubt that I am the only one.  Possibly the only public one.

-- 
____ Tim Pierce                / 
\  / twpierce@unix.amherst.edu /               Rocks say goodbye.
 \/ (BITnet: TWPIERCE@AMHERST) / 
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