From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 1994 23:07:11 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Appropriate Subject Designator I've always really hated those (f) and (m) designators, and have long been against splitting the aquarium newsgroups into marine and freshwater since their inception. However I have changed my mind and think that rec.aquaria should be immediately split into: rec.aquaria.marine rec.aquaria.freshwater which I'm sure over time will get split into rec.aquaria.freswater.misc rec.aquaria.freswater.plants rec.aquaria.freswater.lighting rec.aquaria.freswater.beginner rec.aquaria.freswater.killifish :-) and rec.aquaria.marine.reef rec.aquaria.marine.fish etc etc I would leave sci.aquaria alone, because one day the pinheads who are still aliasing it will relent, *and* connectivity is such that it can be used for it's intended purpose. I would leave alt.aquaria alone for historical reasons.... -- Richard J. Sexton rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com rsexton@navtel.gn.com From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 15 Apr 1994 05:36:09 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Appropriate Subject Designator rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) writes: [...] >I have changed my mind and think that rec.aquaria should >be immediately split into: > rec.aquaria.marine > rec.aquaria.freshwater >which I'm sure over time will get split into > rec.aquaria.freswater.misc > rec.aquaria.freswater.plants > rec.aquaria.freswater.lighting > rec.aquaria.freswater.beginner > rec.aquaria.freswater.killifish :-) We can't make choices for future generations, but I hope when they split it further they spell it fres*h*water. ;-) [...] Actually, I agree with you. However, has it been long enough for this to be possible without a greater-than-usual bloodletting? As a practical matter, I'd suggest that we (you, I just invited myself in) need pretty strong support from the regulars here to make it even worth discussing in news.groups. I'd put my money on this being a giant, contentious issue even here. Oh, and are you willing to put yourself forward on news.groups as the required sacrifical lamb? It kind of appeals to my more masochistic impulses, but I don't have the time. However, if this survives the baptism-by-fire I think it will get here, then I would put my name on a real proposal as a _co_-proposer if that would help distribute the heat more evenly. And lastly, I'd say that someone really ought to finally write up the history of the Great Aquaria Flamewar before it undergoes radical surgery. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 1994 07:42:49 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Appropriate Subject Designator In article , Richard Sexton wrote: >I have changed my mind and think that rec.aquaria should >be immediately split into: Must be a forgery. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 1994 20:27:22 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Appropriate Subject Designator In article <2ol94a$me1@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Dustin Lee Laurence wrote: >rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) writes: >Actually, I agree with you. However, has it been long enough for this >to be possible without a greater-than-usual bloodletting? The snow has come and gone four times ince the last bloodletting. Sure, thats long enough. >As a >practical matter, I'd suggest that we (you, I just invited myself in) >need pretty strong support from the regulars here to make it even >worth discussing in news.groups. I'd put my money on this being a >giant, contentious issue even here. Speaking from experience, it's usualy difficult to get a newsgroup created on a new subject, but generally less difficult to get one re-organized, Given that todays newsgroup creation process has people to handle all the yikky things like collecting votes, and if this group could come up with a reasonable consensus, it'd go through in a snap. Without consensus from this group though, I'm not gonna touch it. Been there, done that. >Oh, and are you willing to put yourself forward on news.groups as the >required sacrifical lamb? It kind of appeals to my more masochistic >impulses, but I don't have the time. However, if this survives the >baptism-by-fire I think it will get here, then I would put my name on >a real proposal as a _co_-proposer if that would help distribute the >heat more evenly. I really don't give a shit about the heat. I repeat, if there is consensus from this group, it'll go through with ease. If not, forget it (for now). It's not a question of if, it's a question of when. Look at the was UseNet is growing. Look at the namespace, it's only a matter of time. The argument I used to offer wagainst this split was "I want to see everything". Duh. Subscribe to both groups. >And lastly, I'd say that someone really ought to finally write up the >history of the Great Aquaria Flamewar before it undergoes radical >surgery. It's in Delaney's net.legends FAQ. It wasn't quite accurate so I updated it and mailed him a copy which he'll update as soon as he can get around to it. For the purient, here it is: -- The Net is full of nasty group creation fights. I was hoping this wouldn't turn into one. Bear with me, it has applicability to this fracas, while I reminisce about one of my favorites: the aquarium reorg of 1989. Noticing that there was no newsgroup for tropical fish wackos, Sexton posted to rec.pets and got 2 responses in 6 months (one of which was "get those fish out of here") and so proposed a newsgroup for aquaria. The vote failed by a 10% margin, so Bob Webber (see above) created alt.aquaria. Some sites didn't (and still don't) carry the alt hierarchy and the group was up to some 40 postings a day, but was not being propagated to Europe where the *really good stuff* in aquaria was going on. At around this time a vote for sci.military was held by Bill Thacker and passed, and Sexton concluded if killing people is a science then so was keeping tropical fish, besides, sci.aquaria would make it to Europe. He followed the newsgroup creation guidelines, but they were unfortunately broken, as the guidelines said a discussion has to be held for two weeks, and it was, and the popular opinion wa a zillion to 6 against. However it turns out the discussion phase was non-binding, so he went ahead and called the vote. Sexton had a lot of friends and they forged more yes votes than the detractors forged no votes. Since all the forgers were members of the old backbone cabal, the forgeries were rather skillfully done and never detected. Seen by many as a debacle, and as a testiment to the integrity of Gene Spafford (who took care of these things at the time) the group was created, although many sites either refused to honor the newgroup or aliased it to one of the other *.aquaria groups. Since the vote was at the time the largest in the history of usenet (938 to 727 in favour) the newsgroup creation rules were changed and the 2/3 majority rule was added, among others. At the time of the sci.aquaria vote, Peter Da Silva was so disgusted with the whole process, that he held a vote for rec.aquaria, hoping that sci.aquaria would either fail or not be honored. Rec.aquaria passed and thus, three aquarium groups exist today. Alt never dried up the way it was supposed to and carries about half the ~100 aquarium postings/day, rec carries the other half. Some people broadcast their postings to both alt and rec and occasionally even to sci as well but the amount of original traffic on sci is, oh, 2 postings a week. -- Richard J. Sexton rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com rsexton@navtel.gn.com From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 1994 08:35:37 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Appropriate Subject Designator In article <2ol94a$me1@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Dustin Lee Laurence wrote: >Oh, and are you willing to put yourself forward on news.groups as the >required sacrifical lamb? The last person you want to carry this proposal to news.group is Richard Sexton. The Backbone Cabal remembers him and the people who hated him 4-5 years ago will quickly recall their old grudges. You need someone newer on the NET, someone with a lower flame profile and a less disreputable net personality. How about you, Dustin? -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 17 Apr 1994 02:04:51 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) This discussion appears to be getting serious, so I've taken the liberty of changing the subject line and re-setting the distribution to 'world'. oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) writes: >In article <2ol94a$me1@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, >Dustin Lee Laurence wrote: >>Oh, and are you willing to put yourself forward on news.groups as the >>required sacrifical lamb? [...] >You need someone newer on the NET, someone with a lower flame profile and a >less disreputable net personality. How about you, Dustin? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Baaa, baaaa. No, wait! I'll change. I'll be nastier. No, really, from now on I promise to be good^H^H^H^H bad. Now, how am I supposed to go about making myself into a net.personality so I can be clearly out of the running? Wait, I know, I'll robot-post about my legal services in the federal Green Card lottery....brrrr. Even frightened myself there for a minute. Hmm, as I recall that job requires about a solid month of posting and answering mail. I don't know that I can do that. What you say is true, though--the impartial vote takers do seem to make things easier. I wouldn't even consider it unless there is a pretty strong consensus here. I don't think anybody should. If we're going to discuss this as a real possibility, then I suppose we should bat it around a bit more. The nicest thing about Richard's proposal is that it is very simple. I almost hate to even mention the possibility of fiddling with it, because that seems to usually get out of hand. However, someone will, so we should at least consider the possibility of rec.aquaria.misc (hey, I like .general better, but this is the annointed name for a general group and I suppose we really don't want to pick fights on things that don't matter). Benefits? The usual, "it makes a place for posts of interest to both freshwater and marine aquarists." Drawbacks? It isn't as simple, and people will crosspost anyway. I think I like it better Richards way. The other question I would ask is procedural. As I recall, you can't make one vote dependent on another, while current convention is that groups are only leaf names. If I understand this correctly, we are supposed to remove rec.aquaria, but if (when) someone brings up old grudges it could backfire and we could have rec.aquaria removed without having either new group created. So the obvious (and probably standard) solution is to hold the vote to create .freshwater and .marine first, and if both are created then hold a separate vote to remove rec.aquaria . Or maybe I'm wrong, and a removal can be made contingent on the creation of other groups. Waitaminnit, Oleg, I always thought you were against a reorg. Dustin From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 17 Apr 1994 02:10:36 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) replies to Oleg: >What you say is >true, though--the impartial vote takers do seem to make things easier. Actually, that was Richard that mention the new group.creation stuff. Still agree, though. Dustin From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 1994 04:34:10 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2oq5g3$ndq@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Dustin Lee Laurence wrote: > The nicest thing about Richard's >proposal is that it is very simple. In retrospect, what is even simpler is to just get rec.aquaria.marine created. It's just one group to add, and could be spearheded by a saltwater type person which might not bring back old memories. I think you're overreacting though Oleg, many of the people who were around 4 years ago when sci.aquaria was created have moved on and/or don't give a shit about those kinds of things anymore; the flak 4 years ago was because of a perceived violation of sanctified sci.* namespace. Nobody really cares what goes on in rec. >The other question I would ask is procedural. As I recall, you can't >make one vote dependent on another, while current convention is that >groups are only leaf names. If I understand this correctly, we are >supposed to remove rec.aquaria, but if (when) someone brings up old >grudges it could backfire and we could have rec.aquaria removed >without having either new group created. So the obvious (and probably >standard) solution is to hold the vote to create .freshwater and >.marine first, and if both are created then hold a separate vote to >remove rec.aquaria . I don't even understand what you're getting at, but don't worry, rec.aquaria cannot be removed without being replaced by something. But let's not touch rec.aquaria, lets simply add rec.aquaria.marine. I don't believe that a reorganization of rec.aquaria being split up into many groups is justified at this time.A Maybe I'm getting old. When alt.aquaria was created, for the fist year if there were 3 postings a day it was a good day. I have no doubts that rec.aquaria.filters would generate more than that, so would rec.aquaria.lighting, rec.aquaria.cichlids and so on. >Waitaminnit, Oleg, I always thought you were against a reorg. I owe Oleg $80, and if he ever wants to see it he damn well better do "the right thing". -- Richard J. Sexton rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com rsexton@navtel.gn.com From: mws@soest.hawaii.edu (Michael Sawyer) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 1994 21:03:17 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Dustin Lee Laurence (laurence@cco.caltech.edu) wrote: : The other question I would ask is procedural. As I recall, you can't : make one vote dependent on another, while current convention is that : groups are only leaf names. If I understand this correctly, we are : supposed to remove rec.aquaria, but if (when) someone brings up old : grudges it could backfire and we could have rec.aquaria removed : without having either new group created. So the obvious (and probably : standard) solution is to hold the vote to create .freshwater and : .marine first, and if both are created then hold a separate vote to : remove rec.aquaria . I have been involved in a few other reorginizations (from the point of view of supporting the change, NOT actually running things), and the votes there were such that a total removal was not possible. I'll see if I can dig up the text of some of those votes to see how they ran it. : Dustin -- Michael Sawyer - My opinions are mine, not necessarily UH's, NSF's, or NASA's University of Hawaii Physical Oceanography/Satellite Remote Sensing RIPEM public key available, MD5OfPublicKey: C53C8744A87664168D135C0763DCCC1D From: kas@MCS.COM (Kenneth Skiles) Date: 18 Apr 1994 21:47:23 -0500 Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) I'll mail my 'Yes' vote to 'voting@qualcomm.com' (or whereever), for the above mentioned reorganization of the rec.aquaria area. From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 07:52:41 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2oq5g3$ndq@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Dustin Lee Laurence wrote: >I wouldn't even consider it unless there is a pretty strong consensus >here. I don't think anybody should. The volume of postings on the *.aquaria groups has been getting heavier. With the USENET growth rates accelerating, it will get even busier. At some point the groups will have to be split up to lower the volume to more manageble levels. I don't believe this point has come yet. Others disagree. However, we may as well get it over with and split things up. >Benefits? >The usual, "it makes a place for posts of interest to both freshwater >and marine aquarists." .marine and .freshwater are good starting points, but they do not cover all bases. Where do the "technical" subjects like water quality, filtration and tank construction go? Where will the discussions of brackish tanks belong? Perhaps a better top level hierarchy would be: rec.aquaria.saltwater rec.aquaria.marine rec.aquaria.brackish rec.aquaria.tech rec.aquaria.misc and branch out from there. >Drawbacks? It isn't as simple, and people >will crosspost anyway. That's not very important. People will always cross-post and there is nothing wrong with that. With more groups to deal with the cross-posts will be less automatic and are likely to be limited to the groups where the subject is most relevant. >Or maybe I'm wrong, and a removal can be made contingent on the >creation of other groups. I have seen radical reorganizations and splitting up of other groups and the obsolite group is removed only if the replacement groups are created. Besides, the non-leaf nodes in the hierarchy are also valid news groups. So creating the subgroups in rec.aquaria will not threaten rec.aquaria itself> >Waitaminnit, Oleg, I always thought you were against a reorg. I am against another lengthy flame-war and another bunch of sysadmins aliasing *.aquaria to junk. I am also against having newbies who haven't got a clue about these groups or about the NET deciding to "right the wrongs" of the current arrangement and demanding that something be done about it. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: harold@ppdrs4.ppd.nrl.navy.mil (James Harold) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 12:24:19 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Huh. Well, looks like people might be serious this time, so I'll stop lurking for the moment and throw in my $0.02... In article oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) writes: >.marine and .freshwater are good starting points, but they do not cover >all bases. Where do the "technical" subjects like water quality, I have to agree with Oleg here. There's a tendency to think that everything should branch out from a fresh/marine split, and I don't agree with that. Most hardware I can think of (lights, filters, test kits, etc.) can (and are) used in both fresh and marine systems. IMO, having r.a.marine.hardware, etc., would encourage reflexive crossposting. As a result, I would prefer Oleg's suggested initial hierarchy, > > rec.aquaria.saltwater > rec.aquaria.marine > rec.aquaria.brackish > rec.aquaria.tech > rec.aquaria.misc particularly if he actually intended to include freshwater in the list. :-) I would also agree that right now, IMO, the *.aquaria groups don't have enough traffic to make a reorg critically important, but that we'll probably have to do this at some point. But if we don't design the groups carefully then much of the advantages of the reorg could be lost due to crossposting. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- James Harold still looking for a harold@ppdrs3.nrl.navy.mil clever quote From: pattib@ichips.intel.com (Patti Beadles) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 17:32:01 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Am I the only person around who likes it the way it is? Sure, having three groups is hokey, but there's so much history in it that I hate the idea of a reorg. Besides, does anybody think we'll really get rid of all those strange foo.aquaria->bar.aquaria aliases that are floating around on the net? Speaking of history, maybe I'll resurrect an old .sig. -- pattib@ichips.intel.com | I don't speak for Intel, nor vice-versa. 75555.767@compuserve.com | (503)-696-4358 | A1: Yes, I'm the one with the big fishtank. or yell, "Hey, Patti!" | A2: A lot, a lot, yes you can see it sometime. From: booth@lvld.hp.com () Date: 19 Apr 1994 18:50:01 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Patti Beadles (pattib@ichips.intel.com) wrote: > Am I the only person around who likes it the way it is? Sure, having > three groups is hokey, but there's so much history in it that I hate > the idea of a reorg. I have not found much wrong with the way it is. It really doesn't take long (for me on my killer HP workstation; your results may vary) to scan the headers with "tin" and select the articles of interest. But, then, I never was much of a complainer. Well, OK, one thing. How about a rec.aquaria.newbie group for people who refuse to read the FAQ, refuse to buy a simple book on fishkeeping, refuse to even give much thought to their questions (to say nothing of trying to compose their questions into a comprehensible format) and refuse to use the carriage return and shift key appropriately? Other newbies are welcome to use the standard groups. "Is that a flamethrower? Go ahead, punk, make my day ..." ============================================================================= George L. Booth The Technology of Freshwater Plant Tanks booth@hplvec.lvld.hp.com __ Aquatic Gardener's Association Software Development Engineer / \ /\ Colorado Aquarium Society Manufacturing Test Division /\/ \/ \ Rainbowfish Study Group Hewlett-Packard Company / \/\ / \/\ "Modern Aquascaping" Loveland, Colorado _____utah__/ \ \/ \ \___me____________kansas_____ ============================================================================= From: mws@mael.soest.hawaii.edu (Michael Sawyer) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 19:50:56 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article , Oleg Kiselev wrote: >Perhaps a better top level hierarchy would be: > > rec.aquaria.saltwater > rec.aquaria.marine > rec.aquaria.brackish > rec.aquaria.tech > rec.aquaria.misc Probably should go ahead and add rec.aquaria.forsale in there as well, since it will probably end up getting added later if you don't add it right off... >-- >Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path -- Michael Sawyer - My opinions are mine, not necessarily UH's, NSF's, or NASA's University of Hawaii Physical Oceanography/Satellite Remote Sensing RIPEM public key available, MD5OfPublicKey: C53C8744A87664168D135C0763DCCC1D From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 19 Apr 1994 19:53:38 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) kas@MCS.COM (Kenneth Skiles) writes: >I'll mail my 'Yes' vote to 'voting@qualcomm.com' (or whereever), for the >above mentioned reorganization of the rec.aquaria area. Please don't do anything of the kind yet. If it is to be attempted, it must be done right or not at all. That means, for starters, that we need to discuss it here until we can reach a concensus, which is what we are doing now. No voting needed for quite a while yet, but it is good to hear opinions on the idea. Dustin From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 19 Apr 1994 19:53:38 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) kas@MCS.COM (Kenneth Skiles) writes: >I'll mail my 'Yes' vote to 'voting@qualcomm.com' (or whereever), for the >above mentioned reorganization of the rec.aquaria area. Please don't do anything of the kind yet. If it is to be attempted, it must be done right or not at all. That means, for starters, that we need to discuss it here until we can reach a concensus, which is what we are doing now. No voting needed for quite a while yet, but it is good to hear opinions on the idea. Dustin From: aisoper@utdallas.edu (Info Sys Operations) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 20:07:34 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p194p$rcd@hplvec.lvld.hp.com> booth@lvld.hp.com () writes: >From: booth@lvld.hp.com () >Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) >Date: 19 Apr 1994 18:50:01 GMT >Patti Beadles (pattib@ichips.intel.com) wrote: >> Am I the only person around who likes it the way it is? Sure, having >> three groups is hokey, but there's so much history in it that I hate >> the idea of a reorg. > >I have not found much wrong with the way it is. It really doesn't take >long (for me on my killer HP workstation; your results may vary) to >scan the headers with "tin" and select the articles of interest. But, >then, I never was much of a complainer. > >Well, OK, one thing. How about a rec.aquaria.newbie group for people >who refuse to read the FAQ, refuse to buy a simple book on fishkeeping, >refuse to even give much thought to their questions (to say nothing >of trying to compose their questions into a comprehensible format) and >refuse to use the carriage return and shift key appropriately? Other >newbies are welcome to use the standard groups. > >"Is that a flamethrower? Go ahead, punk, make my day ..." > >============================================================================= >George L. Booth The Technology of Freshwater Plant Tanks >booth@hplvec.lvld.hp.com __ Aquatic Gardener's Association >Software Development Engineer / \ /\ Colorado Aquarium Society >Manufacturing Test Division /\/ \/ \ Rainbowfish Study Group >Hewlett-Packard Company / \/\ / \/\ "Modern Aquascaping" >Loveland, Colorado _____utah__/ \ \/ \ \___me____________kansas_____ >============================================================================= People like you need to be Electrocuted,not flamed! :) From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 19 Apr 1994 20:47:30 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) writes: > rec.aquaria.saltwater ^^^^^^^^^ > rec.aquaria.marine ^^^^^^ > rec.aquaria.brackish > rec.aquaria.tech > rec.aquaria.misc Hey, great! _Two_ places to discuss saltwater topics. But where are you going to discuss killies? ;-) Dustin From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 19 Apr 1994 21:33:02 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) writes: >...At some point the groups will have to be split up to lower the >volume to more manageble levels. I don't believe this point has come >yet. Others disagree. However, we may as well get it over with and >split things up. There seems to be some interest at the moment, so I'd say do it while it is likely to be done with some thought. Split a newsgroup in haste, regret at leisure, my grandma used to say. Anyway, to recap thus far, suggested rec.aquaria.* subgroups are: .freshwater [[Scholar's interpolation into a corrupt text! :-) ]] .marine .brackish .tech .misc .newbie .forsale I'd comment that .newcomer might be more friendly than .newbie . Also, people keep in mind that this is brainstorming so far, we're thinking not voting. If you think this is grossly wrong, by all means speak up but there is no need to panic. Personally, I agree this is a better plan. I had been operating under the assumption that given the group history a simple vote might be better than a complex one. So a philosophical question: do we want a large, comprehensive reorg or a small, simple one? Sounds like sentiment is running in favor of the former. It has the virtue that if we know that we will eventually need additional groups, we can try to create them while someone remembers what was discussed. Here's a can of worms that would no doubt be raised in news.groups, so we might as well raise it now: why not create the rec.pets.aquaria.* hierarchy instead, to be consistent with the other "pet" groups (or so it will be argued)? I can probably guess the response, but we ought to go ahead and bring it up now. Dustin From: booth@lvld.hp.com () Date: 19 Apr 1994 22:49:59 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Info Sys Operations (aisoper@utdallas.edu) wrote: > > People like you need to be Electrocuted,not flamed! :) Been there, done that. ============================================================================= George L. Booth The Technology of Freshwater Plant Tanks booth@hplvec.lvld.hp.com __ Aquatic Gardener's Association Software Development Engineer / \ /\ Colorado Aquarium Society Manufacturing Test Division /\/ \/ \ Rainbowfish Study Group Hewlett-Packard Company / \/\ / \/\ "Modern Aquascaping" Loveland, Colorado _____utah__/ \ \/ \ \___me____________kansas_____ ============================================================================= From: booth@lvld.hp.com () Date: 19 Apr 1994 22:54:24 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Dustin Lee Laurence (laurence@cco.caltech.edu) wrote: > Anyway, to recap thus far, suggested rec.aquaria.* subgroups are: > .freshwater [[Scholar's interpolation into a corrupt text! :-) ]] > .marine > .brackish > .tech > .misc > .newbie > .forsale Whoa, hey, what about .plants or .freshwater.plants or better yet .freshwater.booth That way, you people won't annoy me quite so much. Yeah, that's the ticket. :-) > Here's a can of worms that would no doubt be raised More like reaching into Pandora's Box, pulling out a can of worms and throwing it at a hornet's nest. I guess I'm not being very helpful, am I? ============================================================================= George L. Booth The Technology of Freshwater Plant Tanks booth@hplvec.lvld.hp.com __ Aquatic Gardener's Association Software Development Engineer / \ /\ Colorado Aquarium Society Manufacturing Test Division /\/ \/ \ Rainbowfish Study Group Hewlett-Packard Company / \/\ / \/\ "Modern Aquascaping" Loveland, Colorado _____utah__/ \ \/ \ \___me____________kansas_____ ============================================================================= From: stevey@cs.washington.edu (Stephen Yegge) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 94 23:04:42 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p1ime$8dj@gap.cco.caltech.edu> laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) writes: >Anyway, to recap thus far, suggested rec.aquaria.* subgroups are: > >.freshwater [[Scholar's interpolation into a corrupt text! :-) ]] >.marine >.brackish >.tech >.misc >.newbie >.forsale "tech" will cover lighting, water conditions, machinery, etc? Some of these discussions will doubtless be relevant to all tanks, but some of them will be fw- or marine-specific. Maybe we should skip the "tech" group and keep technical discussions to the fw/marine/ brackish main groups. Easily half the posts to *.aquaria are about the technical upkeep of aquaria (or they wind up that way, as people try to answer questions like "why is my fish dying?"). If we have a separate tech group, threads will continually migrate to it and create a mess. >Personally, I agree this is a better plan. I had been operating under >the assumption that given the group history a simple vote might be >better than a complex one. So a philosophical question: do we want a >large, comprehensive reorg or a small, simple one? Sounds like >sentiment is running in favor of the former. It has the virtue that >if we know that we will eventually need additional groups, we can try >to create them while someone remembers what was discussed. Go for simplicity, IMHO; I'm betting you'll get more of a consensus that way. Most people agree that there needs to be a split, but the more complex it is, the fewer people will agree 100%. I'd say .freshwater, .marine and .brackish would be fine, actually (for now). >Here's a can of worms that would no doubt be raised in news.groups, so >we might as well raise it now: why not create the rec.pets.aquaria.* >hierarchy instead, to be consistent with the other "pet" groups (or so >it will be argued)? I can probably guess the response, but we ought >to go ahead and bring it up now. I think it's a fine idea. "pets" is not difficult to type, and I'm in favor of anything reducing the number of top levels in the rec heirarchy. Fish are decorative pets. They're found under "pets" on CompuServe & AOL, and nobody's complaining over there. -steve From: Rev Dr Phil Herring Date: 19 Apr 1994 23:28:04 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article Oleg Kiselev, oleg@netcom.com writes: >Perhaps a better top level hierarchy would be: > > rec.aquaria.saltwater > rec.aquaria.marine > rec.aquaria.brackish > rec.aquaria.tech > rec.aquaria.misc > >and branch out from there. I really don't see an immediate need to create groups for all possible interests. I doubt that traffic would warrant it, in any case. It might be preferable to go this way instead, bearing in mind that most hierarchies have a .misc group, and that would take care of less frequently seen topics: rec.aquaria.freshwater rec.aquaria.misc rec.aquaria.plants rec.aquaria.marine As an alternative, we could create just one new group for these guys: rec.aquaria rec.aquaria.marine ...since there's not much crossover between the marine folk and the rest of us. This latter proposal would also be easier to organise than a complete restructure, and wouldn't preclude future expansion along the same lines. -- Phil. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rev Dr Phil Herring, University of Wollongong, Australia Copyright (c) 1994 Phil Herring phil_herring@info-gw.uow.edu.au "I am a rrrrrrrrrriver to my people." -- Flacco From: smithwt@med.unc.edu (William Thomas Smith) Date: 19 Apr 1994 23:57:08 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) >Anyway, to recap thus far, suggested rec.aquaria.* subgroups are: > >.freshwater [[Scholar's interpolation into a corrupt text! :-) ]] >.marine >.brackish >.tech >.misc >.newbie >.forsale > >I'd comment that .newcomer might be more friendly than .newbie . >Also, people keep in mind that this is brainstorming so far, we're >thinking not voting. If you think this is grossly wrong, by all means >speak up but there is no need to panic. > Hear ye ! Hear ye ! Let's go ahead and do it ! Bill . ~Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria ~Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Summary: Expires: ~References: <2oq5g3$ndq@gap.cco.caltech.edu> <2p1ime$8dj@gap.cco.caltech.edu> ~Sender: Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: UNC-CH School of Medicine Keywords: > >Anyway, to recap thus far, suggested rec.aquaria.* subgroups are: > >.freshwater [[Scholar's interpolation into a corrupt text! :-) ]] >.marine >.brackish >.tech >.misc >.newbie >.forsale > I think that this is a wonderful idea. Although there is not a tremendous amount of daily postings currently, subgroups that would reduce postings to half or fewer would certainly save me some time and tired eyes. When can we vote ? Bill smithwt@med.unc.edu From: mws@mael.soest.hawaii.edu (Michael Sawyer) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 1994 23:59:48 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p1ime$8dj@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Dustin Lee Laurence wrote: > >There seems to be some interest at the moment, so I'd say do it while >it is likely to be done with some thought. Split a newsgroup in >haste, regret at leisure, my grandma used to say. > >Anyway, to recap thus far, suggested rec.aquaria.* subgroups are: > >.freshwater >.marine >.brackish Do you think that there is really enough interest in .brackish to seperate it from .marine? The somewhat short time I have been watching this group didn't seem to bring up much brackish aquaria discussion. >.tech >.misc >.newbie You may want to use a different term for .newbie. The word "newbie" has enough negative connotations tthat most people would avoid it. What about "starting." (Actually, I don't know that this group would actually get used at all.) >.forsale > >I'd comment that .newcomer might be more friendly than .newbie . >Also, people keep in mind that this is brainstorming so far, we're >thinking not voting. If you think this is grossly wrong, by all means >speak up but there is no need to panic. Yeah, this would be good also. >Here's a can of worms that would no doubt be raised in news.groups, so >we might as well raise it now: why not create the rec.pets.aquaria.* >hierarchy instead, to be consistent with the other "pet" groups (or so >it will be argued)? I can probably guess the response, but we ought >to go ahead and bring it up now. I would think that for most people, that is a detail not concerned about. From a strictly technical point, rec.pet.aquaria.* probably does make more sence, but that sort of move may not be as easy. >Dustin > -- Michael Sawyer - My opinions are mine, not necessarily UH's, NSF's, or NASA's University of Hawaii Physical Oceanography/Satellite Remote Sensing RIPEM public key available, MD5OfPublicKey: C53C8744A87664168D135C0763DCCC1D From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 20 Apr 1994 02:26:13 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) smithwt@med.unc.edu (William Thomas Smith) writes: >When can we vote ? This is something I expect to repeat about a million times in this thread given very little provocation, so I'm not trying to make you feel bad, just repeating a point that needs to be stressed for those who haven't been reading this group for many years: IF REC.AQUARIA IS TO BE REORGED, IT CAN'T BE RUSHED. As you might have guessed, there is some ancient history here that could easily doom any sensible plan. Don't take that lightly--I don't know if it is still true, but I believe that at one time the flamewar that was fought over the sci/rec group creation was the largest ever on the net. At least, people who didn't know anything about the group would say things like "rec.aquaria, wasn't there some enormous flamewar over that group?" I believe that the group creation guidelines were also changed as a consequence of the shenanigans that went on then. If we do it wrong, people who were net.personalities before you or I ever got net access will come out of nowhere and sink it. We do have people who know about these things, so if we use a little patience and foresight we'll probably get what we want. I just want to make sure everybody understands that no vote is even possible until either two or four weeks after a CFD (RFD, now, I think) is posted officially, and I don't think we are ready to post an RFD yet. If everybody will think in terms of several weeks instead of a few days, we'll be OK. In this vein, NOBODY GO OFF HALF-COCKED AND POST SOMETHING TO THE NEWS.* GROUPS. Please trust me when I say that this will be handled at the appropriate time--by me, perhaps, if somebody more knowledgeable doesn't take that job. Dustin, just making sure things don't get out of hand From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 20 Apr 1994 02:34:40 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) mws@mael.soest.hawaii.edu (Michael Sawyer) writes: >>Here's a can of worms that would no doubt be raised in news.groups, so >>we might as well raise it now: why not create the rec.pets.aquaria.* >I would think that for most people, that is a detail not concerned >about. From a strictly technical point, rec.pet.aquaria.* probably >does make more sence, but that sort of move may not be as easy. Trust me when I say that there is every chance of this issue being one that could provoke people you never heard of to cause great problems. The oldtimers on the group need to give it some thought, even if you and I don't. I agree, logically it shouldn't be a big issue, but I don't know that we have the luxury of logic. Speaking of which, I hope nobody minds me bringing up all the combat- intensive topics I can think of while it's still a family discussion. Dustin From: kas@MCS.COM (Kenneth Skiles) Date: 19 Apr 1994 21:35:57 -0500 Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Wouldn't be easier to keep it simple? How about just: rec.aquaria.freshwater rec.aquaria.marine rec.aquaria.marketplace rec.aquaria.misc Brackish questions could be crossed between freshwater and marine with little pain (there isn't that many), or maybe just end up in misc. Marketplace would imply both .foresale and .wanted, and eliminate the need to add .wanted later on. Everything funky just falls into .misc ;) From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 08:26:07 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p1g12$78g@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Dustin Lee Laurence wrote: >> rec.aquaria.saltwater >> rec.aquaria.marine >Hey, great! _Two_ places to discuss saltwater topics. But where are >you going to discuss killies? ;-) Um. Yes. The top one was supposed to have "fresh" instead of "salt". I shouldn't post when I am half-asleep. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 08:51:06 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p1ime$8dj@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Dustin Lee Laurence wrote: >I'd comment that .newcomer might be more friendly than .newbie . Perhaps .beginner instead would be less insulting and less misleading. >So a philosophical question: do we want a >large, comprehensive reorg or a small, simple one? As long as we are at it, we may as well form a foundation for the new hierarchies. From this foundation we can build up the subgroups as needed. For example, I expect that in a very short order rec.aquaria.freshwater will sprout a number of subgroups: .freshwater.planted (or .garden, or .plant) .freshwater.cichlids and its subgroups .freshwater.cichlids.rift_lakes (better than .african) .freshwater.cichlids.dwarf .freshwater.killies .freshwater.livebearers .freshwater.bettas .freshwater.general A similar process of refining and narrowing of subjects should happen in the .marine and other groups as well. Once the basic layout is defined, I expect that adding new subgroups under it will be easier. It is unlikely that any sys- or newsadmin these days is seriously concerned about "wasting" a few extra inodes for a few new newsgroups. >Here's a can of worms that would no doubt be raised in news.groups, so >we might as well raise it now: why not create the rec.pets.aquaria.* >hierarchy instead, to be consistent with the other "pet" groups (or so >it will be argued)? I can probably guess the response, but we ought >to go ahead and bring it up now. My usual replies to this: 1) most fish are not pets -- you can't pet them. 2) what kind of pet is an aquarium? 3) how does rec.pets justify a discussion or reef tanks full of anemonies and sponges or planted freshwater tanks where fish are not present at all. 4) anyone who thinks of a ramshorn snail as their pet is a very sick person and should immediately seek therapy. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 09:07:27 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <1994Apr19.230442.2243@beaver.cs.washington.edu>, Stephen Yegge wrote: >"tech" will cover lighting, water conditions, machinery, etc? >Some of these discussions will doubtless be relevant to all tanks, >but some of them will be fw- or marine-specific. Maybe we should I expect that such discussions will either be cross-posted to the appropriate other groups, or .tech.fw and tech.marine should be created. >If we have a >separate tech group, threads will continually migrate to it and create >a mess. Discussion threads migrate in other newsgroup hierarchies without severe damage to the readers. If the thread migrated out of the groups I read, it's likely that it has lost the relevance to those groups. The converse is true as well. >I think it's a fine idea. "pets" is not difficult to type, and I'm >in favor of anything reducing the number of top levels in the rec >heirarchy. Why? What possible difference does a few more or less groups make at the top level of the hierarchy? >Fish are decorative pets. Fish are pets in the same sense as "pet rocks" and "chia pets". Further, this reasoning fails for marine reef and fw planted aquaria. >They're found under "pets" on >CompuServe & AOL, and nobody's complaining over there. Compu$erve and AOL users have the subject hierarchies and naming dictated by the service provider. THis is not either Compu$erve or AOL. Just because those services made an error in judgement out of ignorance does not mean we should blindly follow their example. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: sasala@itd.itd.nrl.navy.mil (Thomas M. Sasala) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 10:56:27 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) >"Is that a flamethrower? Go ahead, punk, make my day ..." Click..... From: kem1@cbnewsi.cb.att.com (kevin.e.millheim) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 13:47:11 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p24ed$m25@Mercury.mcs.com> kas@MCS.COM (Kenneth Skiles) writes: > >Wouldn't be easier to keep it simple? >How about just: > >rec.aquaria.freshwater >rec.aquaria.marine >rec.aquaria.marketplace >rec.aquaria.misc > >Brackish questions could be crossed between freshwater and marine with little >pain (there isn't that many), or maybe just end up in misc. > >Marketplace would imply both .foresale and .wanted, and eliminate the need to >add .wanted later on. > >Everything funky just falls into .misc ;) > I agree that keeping it simple like the above proposal makes the most sense. While it may be possible to create many special sub-groups, posting to and monitoring those groups which might contain pertinent/interesting info will be difficult. I don't especially like the .misc group... hard to tell what's going to be there, so you always have to read it anyway. I prefer: rec.aquaria.freshwater rec.aquaria.marine rec.aquaria.marketplace -- _____________________________________________________________________ ...................................................................... : Kevin Millheim (215)770-2391 : : kem1@cbnewsi.cb.att.com : : AT&T Bell Laboratories : : Allentown, Pa. Be an organ donor...it's a way of life! : ...................................................................... From: booth@lvld.hp.com () Date: 20 Apr 1994 14:43:06 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Just curious - the initial reason for having three different groups (alt, rec and sci) was that some sites could not get rec (or alt). Does this problem still exist or has the Information Superhighway enough off-ramps for everyone now? Also, it seems like most everyone will read either all the groups or will skip either freshwater or saltwater. What's the point of having so many subgroups? Is it really that hard to not read the posts that don't interest you? Or is there something about downloading everything to a home system of which I am not aware? Duh, did I make a serious post? I must need more coffee. Back in awhile... ============================================================================= George L. Booth The Technology of Freshwater Plant Tanks booth@hplvec.lvld.hp.com __ Aquatic Gardeners Association Software Development Engineer / \ /\ Colorado Aquarium Society Manufacturing Test Division /\/ \/ \ Rainbowfish Study Group Hewlett-Packard Company / \/\ / \/\ "Modern Aquascaping" Loveland, Colorado _____utah__/ \ \/ \ \___me____________kansas_____ ============================================================================= From: querijero@i7140a.nrl.navy.mil (Michelle Querijero) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 16:17:37 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Summary: These are the groups I would vote for: rec.aquaria.marine rec.aquaria.freshwater rec.aquaria.tech rec.aquaria.brackish (maybe, if there's not a limit to the number of subgroups allowed) rec.aquaria.info (for the FAQ's, rather than .newcomer) Reasons why: I would vote for the split. It would definitely cut down on the number of articles we have to read to get through to the ones we _want_ to read. Marine and freshwater traffic both seem to be increasing, so separate groups for them would be a good idea. I think we should definitly add a .tech subgroup in there. Many of the articles we seem to get here are "What kind of powerhead for my UGF?" or "What kind of lights to use?" It would be nice to go through and read posts that are mostly about aquaria denizens rather than equipment. Brackish questions could probably be put in .marine or .freshwater. But is there a limit set by news.groups (or whoever) as to the number of subgroups a particular topic should be allowed? If there isn't, we might as well add .brackish, if we're going to do a reorganization anyway. I don't think that .newcomer would work. Unless some *.aquaria personalities read it on a regular basis (and from George Booth's posting, I don't think that's what he was getting at :) ), we'd just have a bunch of people giving each other bad advice about cloudy tank water, etc. Also, this group probably wouldn't get much traffic--not too many people want to consider themselves newbies, at least not after a week or two. How about changing .newcomer to .info? There, the FAQ's could be posted, along with the pointer to the archive. Any newbie could go there to look up general information. And at least they could find some good advice. Also, we could post the "charter" of the rec.aquaria.* groups, to tell them where to look for other information and post questions. I don't think that we really need a rec.aquaria.forsale. Unless you live in the same area, how are you going to buy a tank from someone? There are local .forsale groups on almost every news server, and I think that it would be more appropriate to post these things there. As for putting it under rec.pets.aquaria, I say no. There are a lot of groups that don't follow that hierarchy (for example, rec.skiing.(etc), rec.windsurfing), and an aquarium isn't a pet. -------------------------------------------------------------- Michelle Querijero (202) 767-2553 PSI NRL Code 7140 Bldg. 1, Rm 113 Internet: querijero@abyss.nrl.navy.mil My opinions are my own, unless you happen to share them. From: jason@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 94 19:07:20 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) booth@lvld.hp.com () writes: >Just curious - the initial reason for having three different groups (alt, >rec and sci) was that some sites could not get rec (or alt). Does this >problem still exist or has the Information Superhighway enough off-ramps >for everyone now? No, I don't think this problem has gone away. I guess we are really only discussing making new sub-groups within the rec hierarchy. We'll still need to cross-post to and read alt.aquaria ans sci.aquaria. I think this is significant. Does anyone have the wherewithall (sp) to figure out the ratio of posts to each of the groups, and the relative content of these? Of course, I don't believe that it is at all difficult to form new groups under the alt hierarchy. We could just plan to create alt groups which mirror whatever ends up transpiring for rec. I wouldn't want to touch sci, though... >Also, it seems like most everyone will read either all the groups or >will skip either freshwater or saltwater. What's the point of having >so many subgroups? Is it really that hard to not read the posts that >don't interest you? Or is there something about downloading everything >to a home system of which I am not aware? I agree whole heartedly here. We only need the 3 groups: rec.aquaria.marine rec.aquaria.freshwater rec.aquaria.general I prefer general to misc, call me crazy. I don't subscribe to the idea that "we will probably need it later, why not create it now." This is based on pure speculation. Certainly, there is no need for a group like "marketplace" or "forsale". These are relatively rare on the net. And quite frankly, if you a protein skimmer for sale, you want to post it *.marine. That's where your audience is. >Duh, did I make a serious post? I must need more coffee. Back in awhile... Yeah, it must not be April 1 anymore.... >George L. Booth The Technology of Freshwater Plant Tanks Jason -- Jason Rosenberg Computer Science Department jason@cs.ucla.edu University of California {uunet,rutgers,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!jason Los Angeles, CA 90024 From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 20 Apr 1994 19:34:49 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) writes: >Perhaps .beginner instead would be less insulting and less misleading. Two important questions: would anyone post to it, rather than to a regular group, and would anyone read it, to answer beginner questions? Dustin From: mattk@netnews.usl.com (Kaufman M.E.) Date: 18 Apr 1994 22:24:28 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization Richard Sexton (rs@reptiles.org) wrote: : Maybe I'm getting old. When alt.aquaria was created, for the fist year : if there were 3 postings a day it was a good day. I have no doubts that Remember the time FidoNet fed alt.aquaria for a week? Hundreds of postings asking about fish shops in Rochester, NY or some such. Hilarious. I remember your post - "256 unread articles in alt.aquaria? What?" : I owe Oleg $80, and if he ever wants to see it he damn well better : do "the right thing". Yeah, he should keep some SJO and feed them those ugly runty Aplocheilicthys. I did just see a pair of A. myersi, that's a pretty nice fish, one of the nicer lampeyes I've ever seen, but still not as nice as an average Aphyosemion. Matt -- You know, Mother |copyright 1994, mattk@summit.novell.com. All rights Teresa isn't going to|reserved. Permission for reproduction by USENET and like build the broadband |free facilities explicitly allowed. No other reproduction network of the future|rights are granted or implied. From: Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 13:52:18 EDT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) According to Webster's New World Dictionary: pet (n.) 1. an animal that is tamed or domesticated and kept as a companion or treated with fondness (other def.s referring to people deleted...) While I'm sure even corals are treated with fondness, there are only a few exceptional fish that could be considered "tamed or domesticated". Better arguments for not putting .aquaria into rec.pets.* are - it makes the group name too long - it already exists by itself - it generates sufficient traffic by itself - would alt.aq and sci.aq also be changed for homogeneity? For those reasons, regardless of whether you consider your fish a pet, I believe that we should focus on an appropriate division of rec.aquaria. Personally, I am in favor of dividing the group as little as possible. Today, my server showed some 450 posts on rec.aq, and 220 on alt.aq. A significant fraction, but less than half, of the posts were labelled with the prefixes [F] and [M]; myself, although I periodically like to read about the marine side of the hobby, I still automatically skip these posts in trying to keep up with the traffic on the list. If other people also are doing this, then the group is already more or less divided into r.a.freshwater and r.a.marine (or saltwater). The freshwater subgroup would still be fairly large. Of the marked posts today, there were ~70 freshwater (of which 20 were [plant]) and ~30 marine, which IMHO is probably a reasonable reflection of the distribution of traffic -- mostly FW, significant marine traffic, some plant traffic. Given that FW is roughly 2/3 the traffic, todays r.a.fresh would have ~300 posts, todays r.a.marine ~150 or so. I don't think r.a.plants would have more than 100, but probably no less than 50. I make no guesses on r.a.tech or the like. Some of the tech, like protein skimmers or lighting, is very specific to one area, but I'll grant you that there are also ubiquitous topics. Still, I am in favor of keeping it simple, and leaving tech in the areas. In short: why subdivide? Not because the traffic is overwhelming, as I don't think it is, but because it is already significantly divided between FW and marine, and there seems to be very little overlap. So divide only along those lines for now. Alan Hutson/ach2@psuvm.psu.edu p.s. could the multiple-posts-per-day types be a little more concise and a little less prolific? This is going to be a big thread (the more different perspectives the better), and a little care in posting will go a long way in terms of the size of the thread. Thanks. From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 20 Apr 1994 19:59:09 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) jason@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg) writes: >booth@lvld.hp.com () writes: >No, I don't think this problem has gone away. I guess we are really only >discussing making new sub-groups within the rec hierarchy. We'll still >need to cross-post to and read alt.aquaria ans sci.aquaria. I'll let someone who knows answer this for real, but I think that if we create new subgroups the newgroup messages will propagate to sites regardless of whether they receive the supergroup or not. So I would guess that propagation of rec.aquaria may not affect propagation of rec.aquaria.freshwater . In any case, at some point things will have to be rationalized. I don't know if we should worry about this, since the newsadmin at each site will do what they want regardless of what we do anyway. >Of course, I don't believe that it is at all difficult to form new groups >under the alt hierarchy. We could just plan to create alt groups which >mirror whatever ends up transpiring for rec. I wouldn't want to touch >sci, though... I am not sure we _should_ create new alt and sci groups. At some point the structure of the *.aquaria groups needs to be brought under control, and a reorg seems like the time to do it. That could even be listed in the CFV explicitly as a secondary purpose of reorganizing. >I agree whole heartedly here. We only need the 3 groups: >rec.aquaria.marine >rec.aquaria.freshwater >rec.aquaria.general >I prefer general to misc, call me crazy. Me too, but as I understand it .misc has become the standard usenet name for a catch-all group. We'll catch some flak in news.groups for being non-standard if we call it .general, and more potential problems we don't need. I suggest we only call it .general if there is overwhelming preference for that name in this group. Let's not pick fights unless we really care about them. >I don't subscribe to the idea that >"we will probably need it later, why not create it now." This is based on >pure speculation. I don't think so. The exponential growth of news readers (not newsreaders!) makes it inevitable, or close enough. The question to me is whether it would be better to do it all at once. Let me propose the following plan: when we have tossed this around for a while, we have a straw poll just in this group, where people can (among other things) say whether they think each proposed group is necessary. Groups which get little support will not go on the final RFD, those with lots of support will, and we'll have to discuss what to do with any borderline cases. The one problem is who will count the votes. If the job is left to me, I won't promise when I'll get them counted. If someone has software which can do this automatically, that would be a big help. Dustin From: vaanderi@benji.Colorado.EDU (Eric W Vaandering) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 20:24:18 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p24ed$m25@mercury.mcs.com>, Kenneth Skiles wrote: > >Wouldn't be easier to keep it simple? >How about just: > >rec.aquaria.freshwater >rec.aquaria.marine >rec.aquaria.marketplace >rec.aquaria.misc > >Brackish questions could be crossed between freshwater and marine with little >pain (there isn't that many), or maybe just end up in misc. > >Marketplace would imply both .foresale and .wanted, and eliminate the need to >add .wanted later on. > >Everything funky just falls into .misc ;) I think this is the best proposal I have seen yet. Technical equipment would for the most part, I think, fall into .misc. Skimmers, heating cables, CO2 injection and things like that of course would belong in rec.marine or rec.freshwater. Eric -- Eric Vaandering Physics Department University of Colorado Boulder CO 80302 vaanderi@rintintin.colorado.edu ______________________________________________________________________________ The best way to accelerate a Mac is at -9.8 m/s/s From: slhpv@cc.usu.edu Date: 20 Apr 94 11:18:43 MDT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p1ime$8dj@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) writes: > haste, regret at leisure, my grandma used to say. > > Anyway, to recap thus far, suggested rec.aquaria.* subgroups are: > > .freshwater [[Scholar's interpolation into a corrupt text! :-) ]] > .marine > .brackish > .tech > .misc > .newbie > .forsale > > I'd comment that .newcomer might be more friendly than .newbie . I'd comment that .newcomer would be a useless group. Newcomers will probably post to .tech thinking that the "tech" types can answer their question better. I'd say if you want a newcomer group (which I think is a bad idea), you should call it .experts. Place in the FAQ that it is actually a newcomer group. That way old hands will ignore it, and newbies will flock there like no tommorow. -------------------------------------------------------------- David A Dunn Utah State University dunn@cs.usu.edu From: Steve Ghera Date: 20 Apr 94 16:44:00 EST Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p3f1q$oo3@hplvec.lvld.hp.com> , booth@lvld.hp.com writes: >Just curious - the initial reason for having three different groups (alt, >rec and sci) was that some sites could not get rec (or alt). Does this >problem still exist or has the Information Superhighway enough off-ramps >for everyone now? What is alt?!? The thing at the top of my directory is bio. Am I missing something (cheap service, I guess)? <--- Am I asking a question or answering someone else's? Steve Ghera From: stevey@cs.washington.edu (Stephen Yegge) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 94 00:31:20 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) writes: >My usual replies to this: >1) most fish are not pets -- you can't pet them. I guess that rules out tarantulas and emperor scorpions, too. What are they, then -- roommates? >2) what kind of pet is an aquarium? A square glass one. >3) how does rec.pets justify a discussion or reef tanks full of anemonies and >sponges or planted freshwater tanks where fish are not present at all. You can definitely pet anemones and sponges :) >4) anyone who thinks of a ramshorn snail as their pet is a very sick person >and should immediately seek therapy. How dare you insult my snail like that. I will have to have a talk with her about you. -steve From: klefstad@binky.ics.uci.edu (Ray Klefstad) Date: 20 Apr 1994 18:10:22 -0700 Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p1cs2$5tr@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Dustin Lee Laurence wrote: > >That means, for starters, that >we need to discuss it here until we can reach a concensus, which is >what we are doing now. Here are my two cents. I find freshwater aquaria completely uninteresting. Most of the posts to this bboard are freshwater. I also have little interest in fish-only marine aquaria. I am only interested in reef aquaria. I've given up posting because, whenever I do, I get a deluge of questions from novices on how to set-up a fish-only marine tank. I just don't have the time to spend answering all these questions. I've stated exactly what I believe in an earlier posting: RO water, live rock, good light, powerful protein skimming, lots of kalkwasser for reef or fish only tanks. I don't care if there is some overlap between the groups. Anyone interested in more than one subject can subscribe to the appropriate bboards. Occasionally there will be redundancy on the bboards, but is this really a problem? My vote is for the following breakdown: rec.aquaria.fresh_water rec.aquaria.marine_fish_only rec.aquaria.marine_reef rec.aquaria.yet_another_question_that_is_answered_in_FAQ_yet_is_asked_biweekly I really don't mind reading posts from Algae scrubber devotees on rec.aquaria.marine_reef even though most of us are convinced they don't work very well, because it is an approach to keeping a mini-reef. Berlin method reefkeeping is too specific for a bboard at this point. Who knows, next year we probably will have a new, improved design for thriving mini-reefs. -- Raymond Klefstad, Ph.D. From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 05:12:49 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p3f1q$oo3@hplvec.lvld.hp.com>, wrote: >Just curious - the initial reason for having three different groups (alt, >rec and sci) was that some sites could not get rec (or alt). Does this >problem still exist or has the Information Superhighway enough off-ramps >for everyone now? Initially there was only alt. Peter da Silva (who hates fish - and me) created rec. I was egged on to create sci by members of the backbone - go figure. I've only been back on the net a few months, ut I've seen postings that said "we only get sci". sci.aquaria was suppsoed to be only for highly technical stuff and in that sense the group is a failure. However, it serves to remind us all thatnobody is really in chrage, or to state is as the Rich Rosen corollary, we are all in charge. >Also, it seems like most everyone will read either all the groups or >will skip either freshwater or saltwater. What's the point of having >so many subgroups? Is it really that hard to not read the posts that >don't interest you? Or is there something about downloading everything >to a home system of which I am not aware? Well, if you are paying a lot for a newsfeed and don't care about marine stuff (or only care about maarine stuff) a split would save you some money, I'm not sure how much though. I view a reorganization as a better way t organize information. Of course I'm a "splitter" not a "lumper" ;-) {||} {||||} >Duh, did I make a serious post? I{||||||}ed more coffee. Back in awhile... > {||||} >===================================={||}===================================== >George L. Booth ||e Technology of Freshwater Plant Tanks >booth@hplvec.lvld.hp.com || Aquatic Gardeners Association >Software Development Engineer / \ /\ Colorado Aquarium Society >Manufacturing Test Division /\/ \/ \ Rainbowfish Study Group >Hewlett-Packard Company / \/\ / \/\ "Modern Aquascaping" >Loveland, Colorado _____utah__/ \ \/ \ \___me____________kansas_____ >============================================================================= Get that thing under control, will 'ya? A question we should be asking ourselves is do we want to reorganize for todays volume, or tomorrows? -- Richard J. Sexton rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com rsexton@navtel.gn.com From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 07:32:15 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p404p$gl6@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Dustin Lee Laurence wrote: >>Perhaps .beginner instead would be less insulting and less misleading. >Two important questions: would anyone post to it, rather than to a >regular group, and would anyone read it, to answer beginner questions? I think people will post there. But the issue you seem to be raising is whether it will become a group where *only* the beginners post and answer questions. I know how I would approach it. I would scan that group for subjects related to killifish and dwarf cichlids and ignore almost everything else. However, I accept the implication that the questions posted there may not receive much qttention from people most qualified to answer them. Perhaps it's better to have the .info group someone suggested rather than .beginner. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: booth@lvld.hp.com () Date: 21 Apr 1994 14:46:38 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Richard Sexton (rs@reptiles.org) drew: > {||} > {||||} >Duh, did I make a serious post? I{||||||}ed more coffee. Back in awhile... > {||||} >===================================={||}===================================== >George L. Booth ||e Technology of Freshwater Plant Tanks >booth@hplvec.lvld.hp.com || Aquatic Gardeners Association >Software Development Engineer / \ /\ Colorado Aquarium Society >Manufacturing Test Division /\/ \/ \ Rainbowfish Study Group >Hewlett-Packard Company / \/\ / \/\ "Modern Aquascaping" >Loveland, Colorado _____utah__/ \ \/ \ \___me____________kansas_____ >============================================================================= Hey, it's not nice too mess with a guy's .sig. Things like this just make me ... ah ... fume ... no ... BOIL OVER ... no, that's not right, how about ... just Explode! O, nevermind. Ooops, I guess I'm being unconcise here, sorry. From: booth@lvld.hp.com () Date: 21 Apr 1994 14:50:35 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Steve Ghera (Ghera_SJ@lilly.com) wrote: > What is alt?!? Ho boy, are you ever missing out! Alt is where all the cool stuff happens (aside from alt.aquaria, of course). Alt is the bad side of Internet. The Information Superswamp. A walk on the wild side. Usenet Twilight Zone. Don't let your boss catch you surfing there. ============================================================================= George L. Booth The Technology of Freshwater Plant Tanks booth@hplvec.lvld.hp.com __ Aquatic Gardeners Association Software Development Engineer / \ /\ Colorado Aquarium Society Manufacturing Test Division /\/ \/ \ Rainbowfish Study Group Hewlett-Packard Company / \/\ / \/\ "Modern Aquascaping" Loveland, Colorado _____utah__/ \ \/ \ \___me____________kansas_____ ============================================================================= From: lsarakon@hila.hut.fi (Liisa Sarakontu) Date: 21 Apr 1994 16:01:36 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) >.newbie >I'd comment that .newcomer might be more friendly than .newbie . I vote "yes" for some kind of reorganization, but "NO" for any .newbie, .newcomer or .beginner groups! There they would stay, asking each others why their bettas or goldfish keep on dying in 1/2 gallon bowls while all the old gurus will discuss in other newsgroups about their precious killies and mean cichlids. Let's not create too many new groups! Liisa Sarakontu Helsinki University of Technology INTERNET: lsarakon@hila.hut.fi From: dds@cnd.hp.com (Darren Smith) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 18:21:58 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Eric W Vaandering (vaanderi@benji.Colorado.EDU) wrote: : >Wouldn't be easier to keep it simple? : >How about just: : > : >rec.aquaria.freshwater : >rec.aquaria.marine : >rec.aquaria.marketplace : >rec.aquaria.misc : > : >Brackish questions could be crossed between freshwater and marine : > with little : >pain (there isn't that many), or maybe just end up in misc. : > : >Marketplace would imply both .foresale and .wanted, and eliminate : > the need to : >add .wanted later on. : > : >Everything funky just falls into .misc ;) : I think this is the best proposal I have seen yet. Technical equipment : would for the most part, I think, fall into .misc. Skimmers, heating : cables, CO2 injection and things like that of course would belong in : rec.marine or rec.freshwater. I agree with this also, except I would just leave the marketplace stuff to go either into .misc or the other groups. As someone else pointed out, much of the equipment is either freshwater or marine specific, or if general in nature could go into .misc, or is more appropriately put up on some regional bulletin board. I disagree with any kind of newcomers group. While that would make the life easier for you more experienced people, those of us that are relative newcomers would flounder more. I could go for a .plants or .freshwater.plants, since this seems to be a significant split in the freshwater type setups, similar to the split between reef and fish-only tanks in the marine environment (which could also have a split in the hierarchy). My opinion as to why to split. I agree with the split not because I cannot wade through posts I am not interested in, but just because of the informational organization I think it provides that helps focus the area you are reading about. I think you draw the line where you get significant overlap. If you cannot create a group without significant overlap or that makes it clear what should be posted there, its not worth doing. However, some overlap is inevitable. -- Darren Smith dds@cnd.hp.com 229-2536 Network and Systems Mangt. Div, HP -- From: mlatimer@uclink.berkeley.edu (Matthew John Latimer) Date: 21 Apr 1994 20:45:07 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Just to toss in my own contribution... I would support a simple split, like the .freshwater and .marine designations as well as the .info idea. Further splitting seems like a bit much to me at this point. I realize that people have specific interests, but it's not really that hard to avoid what you're not interested in, especially with a newsreader that recognizes threads. In addition, I have found out a lot of applicable information in posts that I would not have seen with extensively split groups, but then maybe I'm just more curious (or like to waste more time) than the average reader. An important group would be the .info group. When I started flushing my spare time down the drain by reading usenet (I'm sort of kidding :)) I had no idea what the hell FAQ meant. I was using a borrowed account at the time and thus didn't feel comfortable posting and thus I just read posts and finally figured out what was going on. But even I, newbie as I was, could have figured out from the name rec.aquaria.info that I should look there for answers to my initial questions. It seems that the great majority of the responses to beginner questions are "read the FAQ". Well, if finding the FAQ (even it's existence) were a little more transparent maybe there wouldn't be so many newbie questions. Ah, I feel better now. Matthew From: pfohl@nucmar.physics.fsu.edu (JEFF PFOHL) Date: 21 Apr 1994 21:01:13 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Matthew John Latimer (mlatimer@uclink.berkeley.edu) wrote: : I would support a simple split, like the .freshwater and .marine : designations as well as the .info idea. Further splitting seems like : a bit much to me at this point. I realize that people have specific {snip} : An important group would be the .info group. When I started flushing : my spare time down the drain by reading usenet (I'm sort of kidding :)) : I had no idea what the hell FAQ meant. I was using a borrowed account {snip} : are "read the FAQ". Well, if finding the FAQ (even it's existence) : were a little more transparent maybe there wouldn't be so many newbie : questions. {snip again} -- I AGREE 100%!!! A simple .freshwater, .marine, .info is very appealing. It is in line with the KISS theory (Keep It Simple Stupid) that makes many lives easier to manage. Also, as a newbie I had a lot of questions and had no idea what a FAQ was. This is why I strongly support the .info group. It would be a place where one could learn how to better use the information that is available before posting those questions that are answered in the FAQ but seem to come up once a week anyways. Further splits can be done in the future as use warrants using this simple framework as a basis. JEFF PFOHL E-MAIL: PFOHL@NUCMAR.PHYSICS.FSU.EDU PHONE : (904) 644-1598 work (904) 224-0707 home (904) 644-9848 fax "Two wrongs do not make a right, but three rights make a left" From: sdebol@lenti.med.umn.edu (Steven Debol) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 21:15:01 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p1pe4$2h4@wabbit.cc.uow.edu.au> Rev Dr Phil Herring writes: >In article Oleg Kiselev, oleg@netcom.com writes: >>Perhaps a better top level hierarchy would be: >> >> rec.aquaria.saltwater >> rec.aquaria.marine >> rec.aquaria.brackish >> rec.aquaria.tech >> rec.aquaria.misc >-- Phil. Just out of curiosity, why is this reorganization such a big deal to the internet powers-that-be? I mean, there must be 100 new groups added every -week- (some of which are quite lame)--what's the big deal about making our changes? -------------------------------------------------------------------- Steve Debol "Your picture's in my wallet and Dept. of Microbiology I'm sitting on it--if that isn't University of Minnesota love I don't know what is." sdebol@lenti.med.umn.edu --Frank Burns From: krogers@canopus (Keith Rogers) Date: 21 Apr 1994 22:17:44 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Geez, I guess I'm one of the infamous Old Farts now, remembering how I used to coax, cajole and threaten our klunky VAX 11-730 (with a whole 1/2 mips serving 30 engineers) wired to our feed by 2400 baud UUCP to disgourge the daily postings of alt.aquaria which was often none and a booming day had 10. After a few years of that there was THE Reorg, but I digress. Oleg Kiselev (oleg@netcom.com) wrote: >>So a philosophical question: do we want a >>large, comprehensive reorg or a small, simple one? >As long as we are at it, we may as well form a foundation for the new >hierarchies. From this foundation we can build up the subgroups as needed. >For example, I expect that in a very short order rec.aquaria.freshwater will >sprout a number of subgroups: > .freshwater.planted (or .garden, or .plant) > .freshwater.cichlids and its subgroups > .freshwater.cichlids.rift_lakes (better than .african) > .freshwater.cichlids.dwarf > .freshwater.killies > .freshwater.livebearers > .freshwater.bettas > .freshwater.general Lots of sub-specialty groups are nice in that you usually know exactly which ones you're interested in but you need to be careful that they don't get so narrowly focused that a group dies from lack of "critical mass". For example (since Oleg's posting is the one I'm responding to), while killie keepers are *very* ardent, there are what, 3?, 4?, in the aquaria groups (I don't know if Matt or Thuan are even still on the Net). These guys have forgotten more about killie culturing than the rest of us will ever know. They also don't post anything about killies unless somebody expresses interest in that class of fish. This would be a prime candidate for a group being essentually useless due to lack of traffic. And while the only yammerings from system administrators about wasting i nodes, etc., is history, I see no reason to create groups just to satisfy a subject's classification system. There are probably some groups which everybody will agree on. In the FW department I would suggest: .freshwater.general .freshwater.plants .freshwater.cichlids Others are likely to get varying degrees of dissent. I should probably mention that I'm solidly in the "lumper" rather than "splitter" camp in things like newsgroup creation and taxonomy. I have a particular loathing for people who create monotypic genera. So take my opinions for what they are. >A similar process of refining and narrowing of subjects should happen in >the .marine and other groups as well. As a hardcore marine guy I can only see the obvious two: fishonly and reefkeepers. And there's a lot more overlap between the two amongst us such that most to all people interested in marine aquaria would be on both, too. I'd say to not split them at this point. >>Here's a can of worms that would no doubt be raised in news.groups, so >>we might as well raise it now: why not create the rec.pets.aquaria.* >>hierarchy instead, to be consistent with the other "pet" groups (or so >>it will be argued)? I can probably guess the response, but we ought >>to go ahead and bring it up now. >My usual replies to this: >1) most fish are not pets -- you can't pet them. >2) what kind of pet is an aquarium? >3) how does rec.pets justify a discussion or reef tanks full of anemonies and >sponges or planted freshwater tanks where fish are not present at all. >4) anyone who thinks of a ramshorn snail as their pet is a very sick person >and should immediately seek therapy. By way of playing the Devil's advocate: 1) Arguments number 1 & 2 are just pedantic semantics mongering. Common usage of the word pet means any animal which humans keep in their homes. Sure, a sponge or a chain sword don't really fit, but they're part of the aquarium scene, so they're pets of a sort. 2) Virtually every pet store sells at least some aquarium supplies. Our local Yellow Pages has a dedicated Aquarium entry, but every store in it is included in the Pets entry as well. And there are several stores which deal only with aquarium stuff which are in the Pets entry but not in the Aquarium entry. 3) There are other "pet" groups already in the rec.pet hierarchy, such as the herp group which includes insects, which are no more pets than a sponge. Anybody who thinks of their scorpion as a pet is a very sick person. 4) A serious stand against putting us in with all the other plebian masses of animal keepers is almost surely motivated by just plain vanity. At the risk of opening an old and much festering wound, remember the first reorg in which some people deemed what they did was nothing less than a scientific rather than recreational persuit? Sure, one or two on the Net are doing serious scientific research; 99% of us are just hacking. (Bet you know where I stood in that "debate".) I personally don't care where the reorg gets put. I'm interested in how the groups will be split. I'm glad to see that so far the discussion has been quite civil. Let's please keep it that way. -- Keith Rogers krogers@sim.es.com From: jason@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 94 23:48:25 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) pfohl@nucmar.physics.fsu.edu (JEFF PFOHL) writes: >Matthew John Latimer (mlatimer@uclink.berkeley.edu) wrote: >: I would support a simple split, like the .freshwater and .marine >: designations as well as the .info idea. Further splitting seems like >: a bit much to me at this point. I realize that people have specific >{snip} >: An important group would be the .info group. When I started flushing >: my spare time down the drain by reading usenet (I'm sort of kidding :)) >: I had no idea what the hell FAQ meant. I was using a borrowed account >{snip} >: are "read the FAQ". Well, if finding the FAQ (even it's existence) >: were a little more transparent maybe there wouldn't be so many newbie >: questions. >{snip again} >-- >I AGREE 100%!!! A simple .freshwater, .marine, .info is very >appealing. It is in line with the KISS theory (Keep It Simple Stupid) >that makes many lives easier to manage. Also, as a newbie I had a lot >of questions and had no idea what a FAQ was. This is why I >strongly support the .info group. It would be a place where one could >learn how to better use the information that is available before >posting those questions that are answered in the FAQ but seem to come >up once a week anyways. >Further splits can be done in the future as use warrants using this >simple framework as a basis. > JEFF PFOHL > E-MAIL: PFOHL@NUCMAR.PHYSICS.FSU.EDU > PHONE : (904) 644-1598 work > (904) 224-0707 home > (904) 644-9848 fax >"Two wrongs do not make a right, but three rights make a left" I'll third that. A FAQ for newbies is an oxymoron. Also, I'm really kind of surprised by all of this "I don't want to waste my time answering bonehead questions" arrogance. The very same people that are complaining about answering newbie questions are in fact some the people who tend to do it, often. One would have thought that if it were so terribly annoying, they wouldn't respond. Quite frankly, I don't believe "beginner" type questions detract from the group, but rather keep us all in the loop, as technology and practices change over time. A threaded newsreader like nn makes it easy to skip things over if they "annoy" you. Furthermore, how does one know if they are asking a newbie question, anyway. For instance, is the following a newbie question, or worthy of analysis by the seasoned veterans: "I am interested in keeping an octopus. Does anyone have any advice/experience with them?" On the otherhand, the freshwater/marine split is a good idea, in my view. The main reason being that it is quite possible to divide discussions along those lines, with almost no overlap. While some marine aquarists will want to read "newbie" posts and others may not, virtually no marine aquarist wants to read about cichlids. Also, I don't really see the need for tech groups and the like. The vast majority of equipment related discussions will most likely reside in the freshwater or marine groups. There is a small crossover of equipment issues, such as "how to get scratches out of acrylic" and "what is the phone number for TFP", etc. These can easily be crossposted to both groups, or reside in a third general group. But, probably, everyone will crosspost everything to alt.aquaria and sci.aquaria, so the crossposting thing is really the easiest....But for the most part, the lighting for a freshwater plant tank is quite different than reef tank lighting. Certainly, no more than 3 groups are needed. Thus, I reject the notion that we need groups for: newbies: They don't detract from discussions, but rather add to them forsale or marketplace: These posts are rare and local, and the sellers will post to the appropriate "area" groups anyway, since that's where the buyers are. tech: The discussion of equipment is intricately related to the specific needs of different animals, and will surely overlap. Let's keep it simple. My primary fear is that I will miss interesting discussions due to overly "organized" information. The only clear division is marine and freshwater. In general, everything else does not have a clear organizational compartment. Jason -- Jason Rosenberg Computer Science Department jason@cs.ucla.edu University of California {uunet,rutgers,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!jason Los Angeles, CA 90024 From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 22 Apr 1994 01:22:48 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Steve Ghera writes: >What is alt?!? The thing at the top of my directory is bio. Am I >missing something (cheap service, I guess)? <--- Am I asking a question >or answering someone else's? alt.* is a hierarchy that you don't get. It is basically anarchy; in practice anybody can create any group for any reason. IMHO you aren't missing anything--others will disagree. Some love it, some hate it. Dustin From: zartler@a.chem.upenn.edu (Edward Zartler) Date: 21 Apr 1994 14:23:08 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization: CICHLIDS Has anybody mentioned a cichlids only newsgroup, or even africans only? This would be the main point of interest to me. Anything else is at best tangentially intersting... Teddy Zartler@a.chem.upenn.edu From: Jack Peters Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 18:39:33 EDT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization: CICHLIDS It has been suggested, and it had a fair bit of interest, but the person who suggested it said he was fairly inexperienced in internet and didn't know how to do it, so if you know, then there sounds as if there is interest. From: narten@percival.cs.albany.edu (Thomas Narten) Date: 21 Apr 1994 16:42:04 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (*.newbie & FAQ) Having a *.newbie (or .beginner or .whatever) is a bad idea. It may make us feel good, but it won't help the newbie for reasons others have mentioned. Take a look the thousands of other newsgroups. How many "beginner" or "expert" groups are there? Only one I can find even close is unix-wizards. IMHO, what really needs to be done to cut back on newbie-type postings is is to revise and update the FAQ. Don't take this personally folks, but the FAQ needs work. A LOT of work. I've spent a fair amount of time reading the FAQ over the last year, and it contains a lot of good information. But it is not organized properly for newbies (especially!), is missing important information (to the point of being misleading at times) on commonly asked topics, and it can be difficult to find information quickly. A properly done newbie section would probably reduce a lot of "can I keep guppies with my oscar?" type questions. Plus, a good FAQ can be a wonderful repository of net wisdom. I have a number of ideas on how to update the FAQ, but am loath to stick my neck out as I don't have a lot of time to commit to an overhaul (at least, not until I get my basement tank rack finished!). I would also not be surprised to find that overhauling the FAQ is met with resistance by some. What are other folks feelings here? -- Thomas Narten narten@cs.albany.edu From: ken@ch201c.ed.psu.edu (Ken Hoover) Date: 21 Apr 1994 19:31:50 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (*.newbie & FAQ) Thomas Narten (narten@percival.cs.albany.edu) wrote: : IMHO, what really needs to be done to cut back on newbie-type postings : is is to revise and update the FAQ. Don't take this personally folks, : but the FAQ needs work. A LOT of work. I've spent a fair amount of : time reading the FAQ over the last year, and it contains a lot of good : information. But it is not organized properly for newbies [...] I have to agree with this. The beginners FAQ, for one, has a huge section on live food, which [while useful] most beginners don't want to deal with and many people will never use regardless of its benefits. Beginners are concerned with getting a tank to survive those critical first eight weeks, after which they can decide if they're interested in all that other stuff which is out there. I relied on the FAQs when I started getting [back] into fishkeeping about two years ago, and they were invaluable **after** I had sorted out the stuff applicable to the 10G tank I started with. A good idea might be to put together some sample tank setups for, say, a 10g, 29g and 55g freshwater tank, and 55g and 70g marine tanks which would include filtration, heating, substrate and lighting ideas. This will, of course, revive some of the flame wars we've had, but there's nothing wrong with listing a couple of alternatives for those. This way, someone could use the suggested systems as they are and have a solid basic setup without gaping flaws such as insufficient filtration. : I would also not be surprised to find that overhauling the FAQ is met : with resistance by some. What are other folks feelings here? I agree it needs to be done, but also am unable to do it myself due to my own time constraints. It should, however, be seriously considered. I would be willing to collect tank setups if other agree that the idea is a good one for inclusion in the FAQ. - Ken Hoover -- Kenneth J. Hoover | "There is not one shred of evidence ITSS Supervisor of Systems & Ops | that life is serious." - Joseph Campbell Penn State College of Education | ken@ch201c.ed.psu.edu -=* Linux - the completely free UN*X for 386/486/Pentium! *=- From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 22 Apr 1994 01:42:27 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) sdebol@lenti.med.umn.edu (Steven Debol) writes: >Just out of curiosity, why is this reorganization such a big deal >to the internet powers-that-be? History. Richard has already explained this in an earlier post. >I mean, there must be 100 new >groups added every -week- (some of which are quite lame)--what's >the big deal about making our changes? You are suffering from the severe delusion that rational argument has something to do with the way usenet operates. If people thought and acted rationally, usenet would be so different we wouldn't even recognise it. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 22 Apr 1994 02:00:14 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) jason@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg) writes: >Also, I'm really >kind of surprised by all of this "I don't want to waste my time >answering bonehead questions" arrogance. Wake up, Jason. If you do not mind answering the same questions every week even after you spent hours of your spare time to write up better answers than anyone can do off the top of their head, you are the only one. >The very same people that >are complaining about answering newbie questions are in fact some the >people who tend to do it, often. One would have thought that if it >were so terribly annoying, they wouldn't respond. You would think that because you don't understand the reason. Those who grumble do so _because_ they have answered the same question time after time after time. If it doesn't bother you, you haven't put in your fair share of time answering questions. I don't grumble much, but I also haven't answered many beginner questions for a long time. I have been here long enough to know that beginner questions are most often answered by intermediate aquarists, or those who haven't had news for more than a year or two. The reason is that the people who know the most (not me) are the most jaded. I am skeptical whether beginner questions can be funneled off into a separate group, but I sympathize with the desire for this as much as I sympathize with the frustration of beginners trying to get their questions answered (which is a lot, though it doesn't happen to show in this particular post). >For instance, is the following a newbie >question, or worthy of analysis by the seasoned veterans: > "I am interested in keeping an octopus. > Does anyone have any advice/experience with them?" It is a newbie question, because there are a number of useful posts on the subject archived. If the person goes and checks out what I and many other people have gone to considerable effort to record for their benefit and comes back and asks questions, then it would not be a newbie question. But this hasn't happened in this (imaginary) case, because only a newbie would ask a question so broad that it is a worthy subject for a book. >Also, I don't really see the need for tech groups and the like. The vast >majority of equipment related discussions will most likely reside in the >freshwater or marine groups. I disagree. DIY subjects, to take just one example, are of enduring interest to the net and have huge areas of overlap. Reefkeepers aren't the only ones who want to build trickle filters--it could even end up that they use them the least. Building tanks is pretty much the same no matter what kind of water you have. I shouldn't go on about my own preferences, though, because they are already there for anyone who cares to see in the archive. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 22 Apr 1994 02:12:59 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (*.newbie & FAQ) narten@percival.cs.albany.edu (Thomas Narten) writes: >IMHO, what really needs to be done to cut back on newbie-type postings >is is to revise and update the FAQ. I think you overestimate the ability of a FAQ to answer newbie questions, since it is an experimentally verified fact that a huge number of newbies either don't know or don't care to read it. However, I consider the newbie "problem", to the extent that it is a problem, to be insoluble with the net as it is today. However, that doesn't in any way imply that improving the FAQ isn't necessary thing. What the FAQ really does is cut down on repeated intermediate postings, because those who care enough to get that far care enough and know enough to read it and then come back to ask the questions that the other material doesn't answer. >Don't take this personally folks, >but the FAQ needs work. A LOT of work. Wonderful. You'll be volunteering, then? :-) The problem is exactly that such things do take a LOT of work. This is why it isn't likely to be done anytime soon. >I would also not be surprised to find that overhauling the FAQ is met >with resistance by some. What are other folks feelings here? Why should they object? The problem is always finding people who will work for free. As long as you make changes the usual way (post proposed changes first to see if there is any comment or criticism--it is community property, after all) I'd be surprised if there is a problem. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 22 Apr 1994 02:32:49 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) I've started archiving the reorganization threads for your enjoyment. It is in incoming/reorg for now. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: amberle@epx.cis.umn.edu (Amberle S Ferrian) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 05:43:33 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <1994Apr19.230442.2243@beaver.cs.washington.edu>, Stephen Yegge wrote: >Go for simplicity, IMHO; I'm betting you'll get more of a consensus >that way. Most people agree that there needs to be a split, but >the more complex it is, the fewer people will agree 100%. I'd say >.freshwater, .marine and .brackish would be fine, actually (for now). I'm sorry, but I just don't see any real reason for a split. The *.aquaria newsgroups aren't all that large traffic-wise, and I think it will be quite some time before they get too big to handle easily. Why create a mess when you don't have one? --- Amberle Ferrian | Never count on miracles. Rely on them. amberle@epx.cis.umn.edu| --Little-Known Corollary to Murphy's Law From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 22 Apr 1994 06:03:40 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) pfohl@nucmar.physics.fsu.edu (JEFF PFOHL) writes: >I envision a PERMANENT entry being the >FAQ pointer. Hmm, fine idea but how do you do it? The closest thing to a permanent article is posting at ever decreasing intervals. Speaking of which, it is fairly trivial for me to autopost from the archive, so if someone want's to write something up (like the thing Jeff if about to volunteer to write) I can see that it is posted at whatever intervals are necessary. It should also include more on how to get to the FAQ and >use it (maybe a detailed example which I volunteer to write) OH MY GOD >SOMEONE JUST VOLUNTEERED TO DO SOME OF THE WORK AND I THINK IT WAS ME >:) Yer dead now, buddy. We'll remember that promise. >(I really enjoyed Dustin posting the Reefkeepers FAQ a >while back) Uh, isn't the rk FAQ being posted monthly? If not, it should be. >Anyway this is what I would like to see done but am >NOT of the opinion "my way or not at all." Jeff, you can't be so agreeable. You fail to grasp usenet. Approach me that you might see. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 22 Apr 1994 07:08:35 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Since people are discussing whether we should have everything under freshwater/marine(/brackish) or independent groups such as .tech, I thought it might be useful to point out that in organizing the archive we have had to consider similar kinds of problems. The question is how to categorize information most efficiently, with the least overlap. This is exactly what we have done in trying to file things in the archive on a rational basis. Whether or not this is relevant to the reorganization is another question. /fresh and /marine are pretty obvious. Unlike the discussion here, we gave reefs a separate top-level category, as well as brackish, cichlids, diy, hardware, killies, temperate marine, and water tests. The archive directory tree fans out much faster than some of the discussions here, as you might expect. Some of that is arbitrary, but it is also because we found that diy, hardware, and other types of posts just don't fit well into the freshwater/marine/etc. kind of categories. I feel pretty strongly that it would be better to have r.a.tech (or .info, or what have you) as a separate third-level group rather than r.a.freshwater.tech, r.a.marine.tech, and so on. I think that this will also go a long way toward keeping some of the "cross-fertilization" kinds of benefits of one big group, since (out of the biased sample of stuff I have put in the archive) nearly all posts that were of interest to both fresh and saltwater aquarists tended to fall into those kinds of categories. We also found it useful to make separate directories for various informational things, so if the charter for .info were broad enough, it might find a niche. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 08:35:43 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p4jpu$9p0@binky.ics.uci.edu>, Ray Klefstad wrote: >I find freshwater aquaria completely uninteresting. Most of the posts >to this bboard are freshwater. I also have little interest in fish-only Let's start by not calling a USENET newsgroup a "bboard", please. Thank you. >rec.aquaria.fresh_water >rec.aquaria.marine_fish_only >rec.aquaria.marine_reef It would make a lot more sense from the USENET nomenclature and taxonomy point of view to put the marine* groups into a .marine sub-hierarchy, as in .marine .marine.reef .marine.fish That way the more specific disussions would get routed to the lower, more specific level of the hierarchy. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 08:41:41 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <1994Apr20.164402.1571@inet.d48.lilly.com>, Steve Ghera wrote: >What is alt?!? The thing at the top of my directory is bio. Am I I wonder how you are getting this in bio. Or what bio is. Probably a manifestation of your local sysadmin's view of how the NET should be organized. ALT is a hierarchy of newsgroups that is not governed by formal rules and where newsgroups are created by anyone for whatever reason they think is worth acting on. alt.aquaria was created because the "respectable" community of the USENET at that time had no interest in creating a rec.aquaria newsgroup. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 08:57:05 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p6u28$6ru@cnn.sim.es.com>, Keith Rogers wrote: >For example (since Oleg's posting is the one I'm responding to), while >killie keepers are *very* ardent, there are what, 3?, 4?, in the >aquaria groups (I don't know if Matt or Thuan are even still on the >Net). THere is a relatively large KILLIFISH mailing list where the more technical issues of killifish are discussed. If there was a newsgroup for it, that traffic would be in the newsgroup. >rest of us will ever know. They also don't post anything about >killies unless somebody expresses interest in that class of fish. Most of the readers are not interested in reading about killies. Why bother them? >administrators about wasting i nodes, etc., is history, I see no >reason to create groups just to satisfy a subject's classification >system. That's fine. Until there is a sufficient amount of interest, such a group is not needed. But let's create a hierarchy where is can easily be placed when the group is needed. > .freshwater.general > .freshwater.plants > .freshwater.cichlids That would be a good start. We can also shorten "freshwater" to "fw". Saves keystrokes. >3) There are other "pet" groups already in the rec.pet hierarchy, such > as the herp group which includes insects, which are no more pets > than a sponge. Anybody who thinks of their scorpion as a pet is a > very sick person. Anyone who thinks a scorpion is a herptile is probably confused. >4) A serious stand against putting us in with all the other plebian > masses of animal keepers is almost surely motivated by just plain vanity Perhaps. But rec.aquaria already exists, why not use it? > remember the first reorg in which some people deemed what they did > was nothing less than a scientific rather than recreational sci was a target for a very simple reason. It propagated better than rec. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: sasala@itd.itd.nrl.navy.mil (Thomas M. Sasala) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 11:11:45 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p6pip$6g@mailer.fsu.edu> pfohl@nucmar.physics.fsu.edu (JEFF PFOHL) writes: >I AGREE 100%!!! A simple .freshwater, .marine, .info is very >appealing. It is in line with the KISS theory (Keep It Simple Stupid) >that makes many lives easier to manage. Also, as a newbie I had a lot >of questions and had no idea what a FAQ was. This is why I >strongly support the .info group. It would be a place where one could >learn how to better use the information that is available before >posting those questions that are answered in the FAQ but seem to come >up once a week anyways. >Further splits can be done in the future as use warrants using this >simple framework as a basis. I tend to agree with this, but my question is - Is there really a difference between .info and .beginner. I could see that the net.experts would bypass this sub group and the *important* beginners questions would still remain unanswered. Maybe the simplest is to just have .fresh and .marine. (Although I do conceed that there is an a great need for some thing like .info. I sure could of used it when I started). From: glen@tegra.com (Glen Osterhout) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 14:57:08 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) I think the current rec.aquaria and alt.aquaria should be replaced with: rec.aquaria.freshwater rec.aquaria.saltwater I consider marine to be a subcategory of saltwater, which also contains brackish and reef subjects. I don't know if it's a good idea to try to create a huge hierarchy at this point. It is probably easier to get most people to agree on this split than it is to get a larger hierarchy that everyone would be happy with. I am also not sure that the traffic justifies a lot of sub-categories at this point in time. From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 22 Apr 1994 18:24:46 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) glen@tegra.com (Glen Osterhout) writes: >I consider marine to be a subcategory of saltwater, which also contains >brackish and reef subjects. Marine is synonymous with saltwater unless you intend to pay your words extra. Reefs are a subcategory of marine<=>saltwater. Brackish is not inherently more related to marine aquaria than freshwater, being intermediate between the two. If you want to argue that there are non-marine tanks with salt water, then you're going to have to put freshwater tanks with salt in them for theraputic purposes in brackish, which makes no sense. Likewise, rift lake cichlids live in water with various salts in them, but rec.aquaria.saltwater.african_cichlids makes absolutely no sense. When people say saltwater in this hobby, they mean water with the chemical composition of seawater. The traffic isn't very large for brackish tanks, which argues that they don't need their own group, but putting it under saltwater (rec.aquaria.saltwater.brackish) would make no more sense than rec.aquaria.saltwater.freshwater . As far as this goes, I very much prefer marine to saltwater. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: jason@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 94 18:36:10 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) writes: >jason@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg) writes: >>Also, I'm really >>kind of surprised by all of this "I don't want to waste my time >>answering bonehead questions" arrogance. >Wake up, Jason. If you do not mind answering the same questions every >week even after you spent hours of your spare time to write up better >answers than anyone can do off the top of their head, you are the only >one. This I doubt. It usually depends on my mood and my time constraints. Very often, I'll see a post that is rather uninformed, and I can't stand NOT to answer it. But when I'm not feeling charitable, I simply ignore it. I don't get frustrated and all annoyed, or anything. >>The very same people that >>are complaining about answering newbie questions are in fact some the >>people who tend to do it, often. One would have thought that if it >>were so terribly annoying, they wouldn't respond. >You would think that because you don't understand the reason. Those >who grumble do so _because_ they have answered the same question time >after time after time. If it doesn't bother you, you haven't put in >your fair share of time answering questions. That's completely false. I answer many questions on the net (not usually reef oriented, since I don't have one). >I don't grumble much, but I also haven't answered many beginner >questions for a long time. I have been here long enough to know that >beginner questions are most often answered by intermediate aquarists, >or those who haven't had news for more than a year or two. The reason >is that the people who know the most (not me) are the most jaded. I don't get it. It's like you want to shield jaded experts so they don't have to see newbie posts so that they don't have to get annoyed when spending hours responding to them. >I am skeptical whether beginner questions can be funneled off into a >separate group, but I sympathize with the desire for this as much as I >sympathize with the frustration of beginners trying to get their >questions answered (which is a lot, though it doesn't happen to show >in this particular post). Therein lies the dilemna. Even if I agreed that we needed to shun beginners, I don't think there is a good way to do it. Should we have a standard internet exam which allows beginners to graduate to expert mode. What happens if a beginner mistakenly pokes his/her head in rec.marine instead of rec.beginner (didn't know there was a rec.beginner). Does that mean we all flame him/her 'til they go crawling to the beginner group, where there will be no one to answer his/her questions? >>For instance, is the following a newbie >>question, or worthy of analysis by the seasoned veterans: >> "I am interested in keeping an octopus. >> Does anyone have any advice/experience with them?" >It is a newbie question, because there are a number of useful posts on >the subject archived. If the person goes and checks out what I and >many other people have gone to considerable effort to record for their >benefit and comes back and asks questions, then it would not be a >newbie question. But this hasn't happened in this (imaginary) case, >because only a newbie would ask a question so broad that it is a >worthy subject for a book. I'd disagree, since there are many "experts" who don't know that much about octopi, and who wouldn't likely stoop to the beginner group to find out. Also, octopus knowledge is quite specialized and rare on the net, and if you want to get answers you're going to go where the audience is, not off in some training-wheel group. >>Also, I don't really see the need for tech groups and the like. The vast >>majority of equipment related discussions will most likely reside in the >>freshwater or marine groups. >I disagree. DIY subjects, to take just one example, are of enduring >interest to the net and have huge areas of overlap. Reefkeepers >aren't the only ones who want to build trickle filters--it could even >end up that they use them the least. Building tanks is pretty much >the same no matter what kind of water you have. Exactly, there's nothing wrong with trickle filter discussions migrating from marine to freshwater over time, if that is the natural evolution of the respective fields.... >I shouldn't go on about my own preferences, though, because they are >already there for anyone who cares to see in the archive. Yeah, like we're all going to go and study the archives. That would be like homework, like studying. That's where I draw the line. As soon as reading netnews is more than casual conversation, I realize that I'm spending too much time with it, so I cut myself off :). Jason -- Jason Rosenberg Computer Science Department jason@cs.ucla.edu University of California {uunet,rutgers,ucbvax}!ucla-cs!jason Los Angeles, CA 90024 From: booth@lvld.hp.com () Date: 22 Apr 1994 18:49:38 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Dustin Lee Laurence (laurence@cco.caltech.edu) wrote: [stuff about salt in fw tanks] Gee, since it is very easy to create "alt" groups, I wonder if we could create an alt.aquaria.re-org group to collect all these postings and get them out of the aquarium group. I'm getting tired of having to skip over hundreds of re-org postings that essentially say the same thing from a hunderd slightly different viewpoints. ============================================================================= George Booth "The status quo is good enough for me" From: mws@mael.soest.hawaii.edu (Michael Sawyer) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 03:40:33 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Straw poll (reorg.) (Sorry if you get two copies of this; I think I managed to get the cancel out on the other copy before it went out. It had a malformed newsgroups line) Well, I posted a brief hint that I would try to run a straw poll, and have since gotten a few votes in my personal mail box. Since people seem so willing to vote, I'll go ahead and post the procedure (even though I was waiting for a few of the old-timers to give me the green light). It is a fairly complex vote, but for a straw poll, should give an idea of what everyone thinks. I have tried to include every option I have seen, so the list is kind of long. rec.aquaria.* straw poll This is only a straw poll. It is not a binding vote in any way, nor is the format of this vote acceptable for an official CFV. To place your vote, send a message to "vote@mael.soest.hawaii.edu" containing a copy of this message with the text "???" replaced with either YES, NO or ABSTAIN. You will receive a confirmation after your vote is recorded. aquaria-reorganize ??? Should we reorganize at all? rec.pets.aquaria ??? Should we move to the rec.pets hierarchy? aquaria.freshwater ??? Fresh water aquaria. aquaria.saltwater ??? aquaria.marine ??? Marine aquaria. (Vote yes for only one of the above) aquaria.brackish ??? Brackish water aquaria. aquaria.plants ??? Plants (fresh or salt water). aquaria.tech ??? Technical details (tank construction, filters, etc...). aquaria.misc ??? Other misc. topics. aquaria.info ??? Information for new and other aquariasts. aquaria.new ??? Information just for newbies. aquaria.help ??? Help on setting up aquaria. aquaria.forsale ??? For sale and wanted ads. -- Michael Sawyer - My opinions are mine, not necessarily UH's, NSF's, or NASA's University of Hawaii Physical Oceanography/Satellite Remote Sensing RIPEM public key available, MD5OfPublicKey: C53C8744A87664168D135C0763DCCC1D From: harold@ppdrs4.ppd.nrl.navy.mil (James Harold) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 1994 12:33:10 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Reorganization: Tech (was Re: Reorganization) In article <1994Apr21.234825.15017@cs.ucla.edu> jason@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg) writes: <...> >Also, I don't really see the need for tech groups and the like. The vast <...> > There is a small crossover of equipment >issues, such as "how to get scratches out of acrylic" and "what is the phone >number for TFP", etc. These can easily be crossposted to both groups, >or reside in a third general group. But, probably, everyone will crosspost (Note that I changed the subject header...might as well try to form some more specific threads) Rather than say there's a "small crossover of equipment issues" I'd be inclined to say just the opposite: that there are fewer *truely* marine/fw specific equipment issues. If I wanted opinions on power filters, canisters, UGF's, pwerheads, surface skimmers, test kits, tanks, stands, DIY tanks, etc., I'd end up crossposting to both marine and fw groups. There are a few things which are largely one or the other (like CO2 and perhaps protein skimmers, but then there are people out there using p. skimmers in ponds and even fw tanks). But I would expect that they make up the minority of the questions. Even lighting often crosses borders: if you're talking general setups, halide versus fl., sources, etc., it applies to all. It's when you start arguing about how your specific coral/plants/fish look/grow/die under specific bulbs that you'd probably take it to the specific fw/marine group. Gee that's two postings...guess I'm up to $0.04 now. Don't want to blow my budget.... :-) -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- James Harold still looking for a harold@ppdrs3.nrl.navy.mil clever quote From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 22 Apr 1994 19:43:52 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) jason@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg) writes: >I don't get it. It's like you want to shield jaded experts so they >don't have to see newbie posts so that they don't have to get annoyed >when spending hours responding to them. No, I just understand the motivation of those who want to get the more frequent repeat posts somewhere else. I also understand the motivation of those who ask those questions, and I don't think that we can do significantly better by one group without doing worse by the other. >Therein lies the dilemna. Even if I agreed that we needed to shun >beginners, I don't think there is a good way to do it. Agreed. I don't thing that shunning anyone for lack of experience is a good idea, but about the 100th time I see someone post "I want a reef tank because the corals look so cool, what do I need, BTW, sorry if this is a FAQ" I have trouble maintaining emotional committment to that intellectual conviction. What we would like to do is to make the same old answers which are posted over and over again available to beginners and have them read them, and the continue from there. To me that is neither arrogant nor shunning--in regard to my example, it is a bit much to ask for someone to post a whole book in reply if you know what a FAQ is but can't be bothered to read it. But I don't think that what I describe is possible, so the best thing we can do is make available what we can, answer questions as we can, and live with the imperfections. If both beginners and old timers have to vent their frustrations with those imperfections from time to time, well, I can't blame either of them. >Should >we have a standard internet exam which allows beginners to graduate >to expert mode. If only we were so lucky. However, we don't demand basic competence for anything else in this country, so it would be un-American to do otherwise for American net.newbies. I think we just live with what we have and like it. >I'd disagree, since there are many "experts" who don't know that much >about octopi, and who wouldn't likely stoop to the beginner group >to find out. I didn't try to imply that it wasn't a legitimate subject, merely that if you want a good answer you need to see what has been written up and saved, and then ask answerable questions from there. In a unfamiliar group, I'd see if I could find a FAQ on the news spool that answered my questions (check out the comp.lang.c FAQ, for example). It is just common courtesy. (It also is a cheap and easy way to look like you know what your talking about.) Then I'd ask questions that could be answered without writing a book. If you don't know that much, it is no crime but it is a newbie question. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: smallory@ouray.denver.colorado.edu (Sean Mallory) Date: 22 Apr 94 18:24:02 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) I tend to agree with George's suggestion for a plants group. For my reading habits: .plants .fish (to include reefs we _really_ need: .wet.animals) .tech .misc would be appropriate.... though i understand that some people don't care to mix fresh water and marine fish. :) And i suppose that for generality, if we have fresh and marine, that brackish would be appropriate. The 'market' ideas i think are _perfect_ for a misc group, and i suppose that it _could_ handle brackish if people didn't want a seperate group for brackish animals. The idea of '.new*' i think is inappropriate for reasons mentioned elsewhere, by other people. George Booth (booth@lvld.hp.com) wrote: Dustin Lee Laurence (laurence@cco.caltech.edu) wrote: > Anyway, to recap thus far, suggested rec.aquaria.* subgroups are: > .freshwater [[Scholar's interpolation into a corrupt text! :-) ]] > .marine > .brackish > .tech > .misc > .newbie > .forsale Whoa, hey, what about .plants or .freshwater.plants or better yet .freshwater.booth Is this like a fresh air booth in Mexico City? :) Sean Mallory (smallory@ouray.denver.colorado.edu) My snap