Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP
Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt
From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.news.config,net.news.group
Subject: Re: impending newsgroup cuts
Message-ID: <1724@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Nov-85 12:42:07 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1724
Posted: Sat Nov  9 12:42:07 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Nov-85 13:13:59 EST
References: <472@spice.cs.cmu.edu> <6090@utzoo.UUCP> <227@mplvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (PUT YOUR NAME HERE)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 42
Summary: 


>In article <6090@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>> If your criterion for eliminating a group is that it doesn't directly support
>>> unix users' but that it has a high volume, you can start by getting rid of
>>> the mega-flamage nets such as net.flame, net.politics, and net.religion...
>>
>>That is exactly what is being done, and that is the context in which the
>>desirability of net.sources.mac was originally raised.
>>-- 
>>                               Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
>>                               {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
>
>Mr Spencer, I'm sure you have the best interests of the net at heart but I
>must assert that net.sources.mac is used by a number of people at my organ-
>ization and many others at other sites that I have been communicating with
>regularly over the past year for legitimate UNIX related work. We are inves-
>tigating the use of the Macintosh as a productivity tool in the UNIX environ-
>ment. This group directly supports the WORK efforts of many UNIX users.

As I have pointed out privately to Henry Spencer, the fact that one works
USING a UNIX system does not mean that one works WITH or ON the UNIX
system.  There are many of us whose work benefits from the net news
who could not care less if unix-wizards and such groups were dumped.
Net.politics provides a mine of sociological information, and is
a lot more valuable.  Net.sources.mac provides occasional gems, without
which our work would be appreciably harder.

The net is a communications medium among people of widely varying
interests, but the ones who control the dissemination of newsgroups
are typically UNIX wizards who often seem to feel that only UNIX-related
stuff has any value.  There's not much the rest of us can do but
say "please think of the rest of us".  And, as I wrote to Henry,
we can offer to pay some of the costs personally, if the institution won't.
There are enough people reading the news that a small subscription
from each reader should more than cover the costs incurred by the
local institutions (especially the one covering the long-distance
charges).
-- 

Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt
{uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt