Xref: utzoo ont.general:544 tor.general:512 Path: utzoo!edhnic!becker!ziebmef!ncrcan!lsuc!tmsoft!utgpu!attcan!telly!evan From: evan@telly.UUCP (Evan Leibovitch) Newsgroups: ont.general,tor.general Subject: Re: Local newsgroup proposals Message-ID: <327@telly.UUCP> Date: 9 Sep 88 12:57:15 GMT References: <320@telly.UUCP> <3191@geac.UUCP> <1988Sep2.175608.5257@sq.uucp> <3205@geac.UUCP> Distribution: ont Organization: System telly, Brampton, Ontario Lines: 40 In article <3205@geac.UUCP>, david@geac.UUCP (David Haynes) writes: > As an aside, how do you assess the value of a group of which you have > no knowledge? > [...] > I just have a > strong adversion to being asked to vote for things of which I have no > knowledge, such as the validity of a new newsgroup. That's a good point, but I don't know how well it can be answered. Nobody but you can judge whether a group is worth reading or not (or whether it's worth having or not). But nothing that a group proposer can say or promise is sufficient to help you make that decision. Even traffic in another group doesn't guarantee volume for a spin-off. But unfortunately, that means you can't propoerly evaluate a newsgroup until after it's been created. Most of the debate that surrounded the creation of comp.women, were concerns about whether its content would be apprporiate to 'comp'. It was impossible for the proposers to adequately answer this, because there was no track record for what they wanted to to. Anyone who saw soc.women probably didn't like its s/n ratio, but the comparison was unfair. How about some kind of probationary period for all new groups? Allow them to be created, but come back and re-vote (or whatever) after a certain period of time. I don't consider making a group in 'alt' and trying to move it later, a good way of doing this. I'm sure many of the people who railed against comp.women probably don't find the group (now comp.society.women) so hard to take now that its content has been measurable. However, it appears obvious that ont.singles would not have survived such a probation. Comments? Does this address any of your concerns, David? -- Evan Leibovitch, SA of System Telly, located in beautiful Brampton, Ontario evan@telly.UUCP / {uunet!attcan,utzoo}!telly!evan The advantage of the incomprehensible is that it never loses its freshness.