From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!eagle!mhtsa!alice!sjb Newsgroups: net.startrek Title: Re: Topics for Discussion Article-I.D.: alice.913 Posted: Fri Sep 10 18:27:18 1982 Received: Sat Sep 11 02:21:06 1982 References: uiucdcs.697 I read this newsgroup mostly because my general policy is to subscribe to all (yes, everything -- no comments about masochism please!) and just say 'n' to the things I don't feel like reading. I have looked at every Star Trek article that has come through here, and when I mentioned the number 13, I meant that our site (alice) has only seen 13 Star Trek articles. If there have been more, I'm sorry, but we did not get them. My main objection to the formation of the group was that the grounds for it were that there were to be several more ST movies in the future, and people took the experience of all the ST stuff in net.movies and decided they did not want all that there, but rather here (if you can't figure out the grammar of that one, join the club!) However, once the group itself was created, discussion dies down. Only now has discussion picked up. Now, to pick out just one of your examples, I am not opposed to net.games.atari or net.atari or whatever, but the way things seem to be going, we would soon be seeing net.games.atari.combat, net.games.atari.tank, etc. etc. etc. I agree, Star Trek is a nice topic, I love it myself, but what would happen if everyone wanted to start a group for their favorite TV show? You may forget, but there *IS* a limit to the possible number of newsgroups; you reach it when your .newsrc file gets too big. What's gonna happen when we get net.mash, net.barney-miller, net.mork&mindy, etc? Certainly these have their big followings as well, but do they all deserve newsgroups of their own? Perhaps they may, but the thing is that the software as it is set up now can only handle a certain number of newsgroups. Granted, we may be a ways from reaching that limit now, but if the trend of making newsgroups more and more specific continues, we may not be a ways from it in the future. In any case, my main thing is not a dislike for Star Trek, on the contrary, I happen to LOVE Star Trek, but a concern over the growing trend to make more and more newsgroups and then find that they are not being used as much as promised. Maybe if we could get rid of some of the groups that have died, this might be a little easier, but no one is doing that now. In any case, I have said enough. I am already sorry for flaming all over the net, when private mail may have been better, but I wanted to voice my opinion. Live long and prosper, Adam