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From: chabot@amber.DEC (L S Chabot)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.singles
Subject: Re: The realities of mod.personal
Message-ID: <135@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 4-Dec-84 11:09:04 EST
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Posted: Tue Dec  4 11:09:04 1984
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Chuq argues against the effectiveness mod.personal because of the geographic
range of usenet; I would present an example and dissent.

I receive the New York Review of Books.  At the back of each issue is a one to
two page personals section. The New York Review of Books has a large 
distribution--you can tell just by looking at the personals: there are items
from the US and Canada, and also London, every issue (true, I rarely see items
from the Continent or from Australia or from Asia)(I also rarely read the
personals).  

One might say that these people would do better off posting something in a
local paper, but there are reasons *not* to do this.  First off, is the matter
of like interests: these people are looking for the kind of person who reads
the New York Review of Books.  Similarly, those posting personals to a usenet
newsgroup know that those who respond to the posting are going to be people
with some sort of interest or job involving computers.

It may be necessary for those posting and responding to be realistic about
geographical distances.  "Looking for someone in the Trona area who also enjoys
going to the dump and shooting rats"--it may be a let-down for someone in the
armpit of Indiana to read this and decide that someone compatible lives in the
armpit of California, or it may mean considering relocating, or maybe even
plane flights for visiting and rat-bagging.

The issues of geographic distance for the individuals involved are not 
significant.  What is more significant is do sites really want to pay for
the expense of mod.personal in terms of any increase in phone bills and disk
usage.  It is hard to tell, now, what percentage of usenet costs this would
involve.  Considering that currently we do have the behavior of contributors
and readers approaching other contributors through mail based on what they've
read by the latter in newsgroup postings, mod.personal would be a natural
evolvement.  My guess is that it would also not significantly increase usenet
load--we really can't do any more than guess at this point in time.

I've never had any involvement or wish to engage in a dating service or use of
a personals column; I've been lucky not to have been quite so lonely, so far.
But whether or not I have any use for such, others do--I could not speak against
mod.personal just because it would not benefit me.

Related side issue: in net.sf-lovers yesterday I posted a book pointer to
_Sleepless_Nights_in_the_Procrustean_Bed_, a volume of essays by Harlan Ellison.
One of the items, I just remembered, was a column he'd written about a video
dating service that started in Westwood, Great Expectations.  He had positive
things to say about that particular organization; there was also a delicate
discussion about people's search for love as expressed by the gentle plea:
"Why don't you give me a chance".

L S Chabot
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shadow:	[ISSN 0018-9162 v17 #10 p7, bottom vt100, col3, next to next to last]