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Re: Quick notes...



Alan McKendree <AI.amck@mcc.com> writes:

>>    From: Wes Biggs <wbiggs@chaph.usc.edu>
>>    A few things, quickly, I wanted to mention:
>>    1) the Usenet group sounds great to me.

> Indeed?  Have a gander at the enclosed samples:

[...deletia...]

If I can throw in two cents....

The man running 'Undercover', the Rolling Stones
mailng list (undercover-request@snowhite.cis.uoguelph.ca - 
no, this is not an ad, but just an email firewall.)
decided some time ago to immediately distribute all
of the individual mailing list traffic to the 
newsgroup alt.rock-n-roll.stones via an email-to-usenet
service.

The connection is one-way, and will stay that way.

At the time, I voiced some weak objections, but
I also knew that, for example, the list of lists
goes out on USENET, and, for another example, 
that the dreaded online service providers were 
providing our access address in places we never 
imagined. 

The growth and potentially unpleasant 
side effects were, it seemed, inevitable.

USENET philosophy/class wars aside, both the group 
and the mailing list continue to thrive. (the
list is up to 400 people getting a daily digest.)

Yes, there is a lot of USENET idiocy, but it 
has not infected the list. There is also a lot 
of great stuff on the USENET-only side of it which 
I regularly read and contribute to.

The Prince and Madonna lists are as idiotic 
and infrequently rewarding as they ever were, and 
the creation of parallel groups on USENET don't 
seem to have affected those lists in either direction.

(The Prince list, in fact, had to switch to an all-digest
format because of some real loons who started posting 
sound files and the like. Whether the explosion in growth, 
and the idiocy, would have happened without USENET
exposure, it is hard to say...)


I'm sorry for going on so long..but I'll summarize.

Keep the Who list. 

It is wonderful, pretty much free of idiocy (I'll
hold my tongue on the whirling dervish who ran the
trivia contest), and a blast.

Don't lose any sleep over USENET idiots.

The nice thing about idiots - they get bored easily
and go away if there's nothing for them to do.

Also, don't assume USENET ==> idiocy. There are all kinds of
issues (does one pay for email delivery, is the 
newsreader easier to use than the mailer) forcing 
people with a lot to contribute to communicate via USENET. 

> Brace yourselves.

Close your eyes and think of England.

  +----------------Tony Rzepela           <rzepela@cvi.hahnemann.edu>--------+
  | "Book launches. 1: Bill Wyman's 'Coping with cystitis', followed by      |
  |      press corps and ribs at Sticky Fingers." -- _Absolutely Fabulous_   |
  +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+