Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site yetti.UUCP
Path: utzoo!utcsri!utcs!mnetor!yetti!peter
From: peter@yetti.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.news.config,net.news.group
Subject: Re: impending newsgroup cuts
Message-ID: <269@yetti.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 26-Oct-85 21:01:28 EST
Article-I.D.: yetti.269
Posted: Sat Oct 26 21:01:28 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 28-Oct-85 09:03:48 EST
References: <6047@utzoo.UUCP> <6081@utzoo.UUCP> <5356@amdcad.UUCP>
Reply-To: peter@yetti.UUCP (Peter Roosen-Runge)
Organization: York University Computer Science
Lines: 45

In article <5356@amdcad.UUCP> phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) writes:
>In article <6081@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:
>>I am starting to feel really hostile towards net.sources.mac, especially
>>since it's now #1 in volume...
>
>I would second that. The shareware postings are of course irritating
>but even the non-commercial stuff bothers me. 

I can see how positive expressions of interest in news groups or topics
(such as the recent support for net.internat) help sustain 
the net both in concept and in practice, but how does the  expression
of personal dislikes achieve anything except increase net traffic volume?
Why should I care what Ngai likes or dislikes? (and if I do care, shouldn't
net.flame be the place to get the latest bulletin on the state of his spleen?
 -- of course, I can't actually read net.flame here, but that's another
issue.)

>  ... these interests have nothing to do with the nature of the
>network or its intended use, namely to support unix users. 

It seems to me that the "nature" of the net is going to depend on what its
participants want to read and what they find valuable -- which is not going
to be a fixed quantity but is going to change with time.  At the moment,
macs and mac software are one popular topic among many; tomorrow, it may
Amigas, for all I know (:-)).  So what?

The last phrase about "intended use" is a giveaway as to what's really
going on here -- the 'original inhabitant' syndrome: we are supposed 
to be locked into some personal conception of the net creators or Mr. Ngai
as to what it's all about. Luckily that's not the way technology works (at
least in a reasonably free society).  By now a lot of people are 
getting accounts on Unix machines or buying Unix boxes just to get access to
the net. So the net  no longer exists just "to support unix users"; rather Unix 
is a (currently indispensable) tool for the net.

> Phil Ngai +1 408 749-5720
> ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.dec.com
-- 

   Peter H. Roosen-Runge, Department of Computer Science, York University
                          Toronto M3J 1P3 , Ontario, Canada
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	From a land where Lord Spencer rules -- No Admittance
	to Undesirable Newsgroups.
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