From: psrc@pegasus.att.com (Paul S R Chisholm)
Subject: rec.arts.startrek.reviews moderated and proposed rec.arts.startrek split
Reply-To: psrc@pegasus.att.com (Paul S R Chisholm)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 03:37:16 GMT
Summary: I like the reviews; I don't know about a TNG/DS9 split

First of all, I'd like to apologize on behalf of all of us to Scott
Forbes.  If *this* is the most vicious, nasty, content-free we all can
be, how will we ever have another Usenet Olympics?  There's been no
character assassination, no discussions of other netnews activities;
why, it's been largely civil and informative.  Gosh, kids today just
don't know how to run a group split.  [CAPTION FOR THE HUMOR IMPAIRED:
this paragraph is a sarcastic way of saying this is a much nicer
discussion than *some* r.a.startrek splits have had.]

So, what's the problem we're trying to solve?

To me, it's simple.  As Evelyn Leeper and Robert Spiker have pointed
out, ras.current is a complete mish-mash.  We might as well drop it and
let discussion go to the official ras.misc.  Certainly, it's been
months since current has been small enough for me to keep up with.

I think Robert Spiker did a good job of analyzing ras.current.  I
disagree with his conclusion.  Yes, if only "we" would post to
appropriate newsgroups, there would be less of a problem.  Mr. Spiker's
data suggests to me that "we" are incapable of doing that.

There are two proposals:

(1)  To create a moderated medium for reviews of *any* STAR TREK-
related work:  TNG, DS9, TOS movies, TNG movies, TOS and TAS episodes,
novels, graphic novels, comic books, whatever.  This has been proposed
both as a newsgroup and as a mailing list.

(2)  To split ras.current into ras.current.tng and ras.current.ds9 (and
possibly ras.current.misc?)

(Caveats:  I'm generally a pro-split kind of guy.  When we were voting
on the ras split we now have, I was one of the loudest voices for tos,
tas, tng, movies, and comics sub-groups.  I don't read any ras groups
other than info.  I'm very grateful for moderated groups, and might
vote for rec.arts.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork if it was moderated.)

Please note that the two proposals are independent.  We can have
ras.reviews and two current groups, or two current groups and no
reviews group, or a new reviews group and the one existing current
group.  I prefer the last.

I think the ras.reviews moderated group would be a good one, one I'd be
very likely to read.  It's likely to avoid what I consider "junk" in
ras.current.

I like the idea that ras.reviews follow-ups would (by default) be
posted to ras.current(.*).  If I wanted to post a follow-up *review*,
I'd have no problem submitting it to ras.reviews (I'd just edit the
article I'm posting and change the newsgroup.)  That sounds fine (as
long as the follow-ups are also moderated).

I don't care whether or not rejected articles would be posted
automatically to the "appropriate" newsgroup.  I don't care whether or
not such a group would be cross-posted.  I don't care if the reviews
editor changed the Subject: line, or corrected spelling mistakes.

I would not subscribe to a moderated STAR TREK reviews mailing list.  I
live and die by e-mail (e-mail systems are what I do for a living); I
need to separate my "recreational computing" from my job.  If the list
and the group were linked, we'd have the best of both worlds.

As for the the TNG/DS9 split?  I don't think discussions of Kirk are
what's clogging up the current group.  There's just too much (volume
and variety) in there.  I'm a moderately skilled rn user*, but I can't
find the wheat in the chaff.  Split or don't, as you see fit; but I
don't see any benefits.

One last comment:  Might the contents of ras.current be improved if we
changed its name back to the original proposal of ras.spoilers?

Paul S. R. Chisholm, AT&T Bell Laboratories/EasyLink Services,
att!pegasus!psrc, psrc@pegasus.att.com, AT&T Mail !psrchisholm
I'm not speaking for the company, I'm just speaking my mind.

P.S.:

*The cbnews administrators have told the users that threaded news
readers come with a 10% overhead to store all the threads.  They aren't
convinced they should buy more disks and/or expire news more quickly;
thus, we don't have threaded newsreaders.

If you feel this isn't the case, please let me know via *e-mail*; don't
let's clutter up the r.a.startrek discussion with netnews
implementation details.

If you think our administrators should expire news more quickly, I'd be
happy to pass your e-mail message on.  If you think the hard disks to
store the threads are incredibly cheap, please buy them for us out of
your own pockets.