Re: lots o' mail

D. Peterson (harpbard@ccnet.com)
Sat, 13 Jan 1996 23:49:36 -0800

Re: newsgroups
> The thing about a newsgroup is that, unless it is moderated, anybody
>in the world can post anything they want. This of course can be a good
>thing, but unless it is moderated, you often have to wade through a
>lot of junk. You get the "MAKE MONEY FA$T" spams, you get flame-baiting
>"trolls" (as opposed to nice harp-building elves). I like mailing lists a
>lot better. They're smaller, more like a chat among friends. A newsgroup
>is more like an open mike.

All true. However, unless you like to read the news offline, you can just
download the threads that you want to see and ignore the rest. Perhaps that
is a cure for the folks that just hate to get mail about technical issuer
and those who are less than interested in elves. :-}

For many of us, email gets delivered whether we want to read it or not. A
newsgroup is the cure, as Kim suggests.

In fact, we probably would do well with both a harp makers group and a harp
players group. It would be nice to be able to have a substantive technical
discussion with other harpmakers without feeling that it is unwelcome to
the group as a whole.

> If we become a newsgroup, we are then open to the entire Internet,
>with all of the associated problems (spamming, rude behavior, etc.).

And we don't get behavior/communication problems now? Ask anybody who has
been in anything even minimally controversial-like Rhonda for instance.
Some of the flames that the list members can send are downright hair
curling.