Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!bbn!aoa!carl
From: carl@aoa.UUCP (Carl Witthoft)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: cross posting
Message-ID: <880@aoa.UUCP>
Date: 18 Aug 89 11:53:23 GMT
References: <2989@blake.acs.washington.edu> <1989Jul28.223042.4488@twwells.com> <6554@bunker.UUCP> <1055@clyde.Concordia.CA> <424@nixpbe.UUCP> <1202@abaa.UUCP>
Reply-To: carl@aoa (Carl Witthoft)
Distribution: news.newusers.questions
Organization: Adaptive Optics assoc., Cambridge, Ma
Lines: 30

In article <1202@abaa.UUCP> esker@mars.UUCP (Lawrence Esker) writes:
>In article <424@nixpbe.UUCP> bnews@nixpbe.UUCP (Martin Boening) writes:
>>timl@maxwell.Concordia.CA ( TIM LAPIN ) writes:
>>>	How do you cross post?
>>Simple answer. You don't, if it isn't absolutely necessary. If it is
>And why not?  If a topic relates to more than one subject, it should be cross
>posted.  It does not use extra bandwidth.  It invites both sides of an issue
>to interact instead of all these one sided slams that we get.  This is a
>public network, not a group of independent newsgroup cliques.
Two problems: the main one is that NO-ONE EVER looks at the post
list when following up, so that followups go all over the newsgroups
forever and ever.  This is especially bad when talk.bizarre is 
one of the groups... you never get the garbage out of the other
groups.  In general, mixing sci.* and/or misc.* with any soc.*
tends to mix rational ( you hope :=( ), personal, and outrageous
flammatory stuff into a useless pile of noise.  Personnaly, I'd vote
for a mod to rn which makes the default Followup-to line contain
ONLY the group  presently being read, so that it takes active
effort to inundate all the other groups with responses.

Oh, yes, the other problem: cross-posts to 75 groups because the poster
either isn't sure what group is appropriate or wants to be sure that
EVERYONE who might care gets to read his words of wonder.


-- 
Alix' Dad ( Carl Witthoft @ Adaptive Optics Associates)
{harvard,ima}!bbn!aoa!carl
54 CambridgePark Drive, Cambridge,MA 02140 617-864-0201
"disclaimer? I'm not a doctor, but I do have a Master's Degree in Science!"