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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!mcnc!ecsvax!bch
From: bch@ecsvax.UUCP (Byron C. Howes)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.group
Subject: Re: Fear and Loathing on the Clouds
Message-ID: <680@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 1-Nov-85 14:49:27 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.680
Posted: Fri Nov  1 14:49:27 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 6-Nov-85 04:25:15 EST
References: <614@h-sc1.UUCP> <1817@hao.UUCP> <326@pedsgd.UUCP>
Reply-To: bch@ecsvax.UUCP (Byron C. Howes)
Organization: N C Educational Computing Service
Lines: 47
Xref: watmath net.news:4265 net.news.group:4280
Summary: 

In article <535@scirtp.UUCP> dfh@scirtp.UUCP (David F. Hinnant) writes:

>Eric was pushing the issue when he said "NEVER".  I aggree that "NEVER" is
>not entirely correct.  However, I don't think these minor exceptions matter.
>Perpetuation of the ideals of group-creationism is wrong and should not be 
>used as an argument, much less a justification.

Then we agree that the notion that there has always been a consensus about
newsgroup creation or deletion is a myth.  Groups with high legitimacy, 
like net.announce, have been correctly created by fiat -- whether an
exception or not -- directly in contradiction to the published procedure
for newsgroup creation.

>I don't really think the "mod" groups count as genuine "news groups" since 
>they are moderated.  I see the mod groups more as Arpa-style mailing lists
>that get posted instead of mailed.

Odd.  They generate traffic that takes up disk space. They occupy a
line in my active file (which occasionally overflows.) They need to
have expire run against them.  They're subject to newgroup and rmgroup
messages like anything else.  They have subject matter which may be
technical or recreational.  Gee, they look just like newsgroups to me.

Where does it say in the rules for usenet conduct that the procedure
for creating mod.* groups is  different than the procedure for creating
net.* groups?

>Ok, It may have happened that way, but it isn't right.  Creation OR deletion
>of groups without a concensus is still wrong.  See above complaint about
>justification.

If it the creation of net.announce was so wrong, why didn't you complain
then?  Why aren't people complaining about the current run of mod.groups
being created.  Oh yeah.  They're different.  They're not *real* newsgroups. :-)

>On an ad hoc network as large 
>as USENET, "by and large" is the ONLY way things can be done since there is 
>no single controlling entity - nor should there be.

Then the usenet document is meaningless (we've never reached consensus
on it and, in fact, have violated it many times.) Net.internat should
not have been rmgrouped.  You can't have it both ways.
-- 

                                              Byron Howes
					System Manager -- NCECS
				   ...!{decvax,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!bch