Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!hplabs!sdcrdcf!trwrb!cadovax!gryphon!mhnadel
From: mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM (Miriam Nadel)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Wish List re: Crossposting
Message-ID: <3938@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: 10 May 88 16:46:26 GMT
Reply-To: mhnadel@gryphon.CTS.COM (Miriam Nadel)
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 41

We periodically see suggestions about how to cut down on cross-posting and
the most workable thing I've noticed so far is the suggestion that the
news software should require you to confirm that you really want to crosspost
the article in question to all the groups mentioned.  That may cut down on
careless crossposting (which very likely is the major problem) but I'd like
to suggest that there should be some filters which would outright prevent
crossposting between certain groups.  For example,

xxx.anything and xxx.misc - the .misc groups are supposed to exist to
                            handle things that don't belong anywhere else.
                            There may be appropriate occassions for
                            crossposting between xxx.something and yyy.misc,
                            however.

misc.misc and anything else - by definition of misc.misc

talk.politics.mideast and soc.culture.jewish or soc.culture.arabic - since
                              t.p.m was created to get these discussions out
                              of the soc groups

misc.headlines and talk.politics.misc - keep a given discussion in one.  This
                               is a problem largely because few people have
                               any idea of what misc.headlines is for.

alt groups and anything else - particularly alt.sex since it was created
                              as an alt group to appease management types
		              and everyone in soc.singles is sick and tired
                              of the "music to fuck to" question anyway

talk.bizarre and rec.arts.startrek - for obvious reasons

I'm sure any regular newsreader can come up with several more examples.  
There are getting to be so many groups that I'm sure new readers (and some
old ones!) are just confused, but having given up hope of people learning
better, it would be nice to impose my will on them :-)

Miriam Nadel
-- 
"There was a man who, upon finding nothing to complain about in his coal,
complained that it contained too many prehistoric toads."    -Mark Twain
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