From: toriver@flipper.pvv.unit.no (Tor Iver Wilhelmsen)
Subject: Re: rec.games.strategic
Organization: ProgramVareVerkstedet - UNIT
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 92 20:36:28 GMT

In article <1992Aug24.113419.7369@ists.ists.ca> sizone!justin@ee.ryerson.ca (Justin Wells) writes:
>
>What you seem to totally lack is the realization that there are three
>completely different groups of people trying to use a single newsgroup,
>and they have nothing whatever in common with each other, except that the
>games they play happen to occur on boards.
>
... he says, not identifying the three groups until quite later...

>I am not now, nor will I ever be interested in playing Axis & Allies.
>Reading 20 posts a day on games like this is a complete waste of my
>time.  Furthermore, the main problem is that the 20 posts a day make
>the whole newsgroup feel like a gamer newsgroup, and not a board game
>newsgroup.
>
Okay, use kill files. I will presume you are new to news, so I will just
point you in the direction of news.newusers.questions

>As I mentioned just previously, this results in all kinds of inappropriate
>posts going to rec.games.chess and rec.games.go -- simply because the
>proper place for them (rec.games.board) has been appropriated by a special
>interest group.
>
... but it hasn't! I kill on BTECH, WWII, EiA, A&A, and find most of the
rest interesting and diverse. Also, see the USENet Rule No. 1 below...

>It IS likely that a shogi player would be interested to read posts 
>about pente; or that a monopoly player might find a scrabble post
>amusing.  What you are missing is that when you find these other
>posts amusing, it is because they are about games which you don't
>play but which are very much like games that you do play.
>
>As far as I'm concerned every post that has originated from rec.games.board
>has been drivel, and a waste of my time.

Then don't read it. That would save both you and us some wasted bandwidth.

>  (Don't take this the wrong way,
>I'm sure I have interests you would class as boring too).  All of the
>interesting things I've seen in rec.games.board have been cross postings
>from rec.games.go and rec.games.chess.
>

... which contradicts your previous statement about drivel.

>And by the way -- if there were a newsgroup with 200 posts a day, and
>60+ were about Go, that would mean someone is unaware that there is
>already a lively newsgroup called rec.games.go, which has managed
>to remain completely and totally viable and interesting, despite 
>concerning itself with just one of these games you think people
>don't post about.
>

Are you saying that I should start to crosspost non-subject-related things
to rec.games.go?? (See USENet Rule 1 below)

It would appear you want - in the end - one newsgroup for each possible
subject, starting with a division into groups based on the subject game.
No matter how many groups you split into, however, (an increasing number
of newsgroups only irritates people, and may cause problems with
news-readers that have set limits), people will cross-post to their
heart's content. Observe:

USENet Rule No. 1:  No matter how specific a charter you set up, no matter
what subjects dominate a newsgroup, people will cross-post articles that
have nothing to do with the charter. You don't get away from that. People
post to the newsgroups they want to, if the group in unmoderated, there is
nothing that prevents them from doing that.

Anyway, 'host' reports that you have posted from a machine that, by all
probability runs a mutation of UNIX. If so, you might consider moving from
rrn or xrn or whatever you are using, to a _threaded_ newsreader like trn
or tin, where you can skip (as in _not_reading_ articles) subjects and
threads till you go blue in the face.

- Tor Wilhelmsen, avid user of trn, previous user of Emacs Gnus.
-- 
"I'm a Derek, and Dereks don't run!" - Derek in 'Bad Taste'
toriver@pvv.unit.no
Standard disclaimer should apply to this, I guess...
"Reality is a poor escapism for people who cannot handle roleplaying" - Me
Organization: Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA