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 snappy quote got _^)_---03@#!@ and died.... From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 04:27:37 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Keith Rogers ran into problems posting his reply to me. His newsfeed is dead and may stay dead for a lengthy while. He asked me to post it for him: Oleg Kiselev (oleg@netcom.com) wrote: >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. That's good enough for me. Make a killie group. >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. Ok, after reading the various group names proposed, a fleshed out version of some of the more favored ideas I can remember might start with (in alphabetical order): .brackish .fw.cichlids .fw.general .fw.killies .fw.plants .misc .sw.fish-only .sw.reef .tech Time for people to get their specialty groups in. >Anyone who thinks a scorpion is a herptile is probably confused. Undoubtedly, but that doesn't change the fact that they're covered in the rec.pets hierachy and sold at pet stores. >>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? I think you're right that intertia will rule here, and leaving it in rec.aquaria is fine by me and most everybody else as near as I can tell. BTW, there's a straw poll going on right now but I don't think the proposed hierarchy names have settled down enough for it to be too meaningful except for the question about whether or not to reorg at all and whether or not to put it in the rec.pets hierarchy. I'd like to see more consensus develop into better hashed out group names and alternative hierarchies, then use a straw vote to see if which are particularly favored and perhaps fine tune them before calling a formal vote. I'm certainly with Dustin in wanting to take our time with the whole thing. I think even the straw poll has jumped the gun. -- Keith Rogers krogers@sim.es.com -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 04:28:33 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article , Oleg Kiselev wrote: A couple of comments, Oleg. Abbreviateing .freshwater to .fw will probably result in dozens of "what does .fw mean ? Firmware ?". Remember alt.emusic I created it for music of ethnic origin. Most of the postings were about electronic music. I created alt.electronic-music which cut down the number of electronic music postings to .emusic. I created alt.ethnic-music and things finally settled down. The lesson learned here s you have to be VERY carefull about naming usenet groups. Abbrevitions seldom work. A group for killies ? Maybe. For freshwater plants ? Definitly. Grepping the spool directories demonstrated to me a high percentage of plant postings. Uncertain whether .plants and .lighting would be required. .cichlids ? I'd say there is critical ass to support such a group, but I'm not sure if every tom dick and harry with an oscar or scalare knows they are cichlids. Maybe you'll only get the more serious hobbyists. Hmm. Might be nteresting reading. A group for killies ? There's a few hundred kill-list members, and thet is nowhere near one member per regional club, of which there are dozens. There's probably 50,000 killifans just in the US, with the rate of growth of the net, and compuserv's imments parcel of 1.8 million new users, maybe it'll fly. Of course you realize "there isn't enough traffic to warrent xxx.yyy as a newsgroup has never once been shown to be true. Hell, that argument was said about the original call for rec.aquaria, which failed and became alt.auquaria on the rebound. The lesson learned here is "create the group and they will come". -- Richard J. Sexton rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com rsexton@navtel.gn.com From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 04:32:21 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) I would strongly suggest rec.aquaria.comerce for not only buy&sell topics, but the long and frequesnt discussions abou t stores and mail order places. -- Richard J. Sexton rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com rsexton@navtel.gn.com From: slhpv@cc.usu.edu Date: 22 Apr 94 23:59:50 MDT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p7pbs$h4v@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) writes: > > 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. > [delete] > > Uh, isn't the rk FAQ being posted monthly? If not, it should be. > Actually, I think that all FAQ's should be posted weekly. Sites like this one don't hold articles long enough for me to even be able to reference the FAQ's online at their current rate. It took a while for me to even find them. -------------------------------------------------------------- David A Dunn Utah State University dunn@cs.usu.edu -------------------------------------------------------------- From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 07:42:34 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article , Amberle S Ferrian wrote: >*.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 I read *.aquaria on the average 3 times a week. It is rare for me to see less than 200 articles in rec.aquaria. I simply don't have the time to read every article. I end up reading 10-20 articles and occasionally replying to 1 or 2. I probably miss a lot of interesting things and a lot of questions I could have answered. "Subject:" lines are rarely sufficient to tell what the message is about. If the group were split into a few general subject categories, it would be easier to manage the volume. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: kerri@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Kerri Hohmann) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 05:53:50 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re-organization As I understand it, the USENET needs to make the division somewhere between being so basic that nobody really thinks it was worth the effort and being so complicated that it takes everyone 2 years to figure out when to post where. I would definitely vote for 4 basic divisions: .freshwater .marine .brackish .tech (equipt., misc. whatever you want to call it) I don't think it would be unreasonable to make a .beginner division either. Lets face it, our more experienced aquarists already skip these posts anyway, not to mention actually posting replies. There would still be people who read it and it would prob. be the same people who reply to them now. Sure, there might be a lot of incorrect advice going out, but that will prob. just make someone more likely to post the right answer... -- Kerri Hohmann Internet: kerri@lamar.colostate.edu From: allan.levy@his.com (Allan Levy) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 20:15:31 Newsgroups: rec.aquaria Subject: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Sean Mallory writes in a message on 22 Apr 94 to (crosspost 1) All in REC AQUARIA: > .freshwater [[Scholar's interpolation into a corrupt text! :-) ]] > .marine > .brackish > .tech > .misc > .newbie > .forsale & plants looks good, the reason is I would probably subscribe to all but just read what I was interested in, you might add chichids discus for the specialists. Sincerely, Allan E. Levy From: allan.levy@his.com (Allan Levy) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 1994 20:22:15 Newsgroups: rec.aquaria Subject: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Richard Sexton writes in a message on 23 Apr 94 to (crosspost 1) All in REC AQUARIA: RS> I would strongly suggest rec.aquaria.comerce for not only RS> buy&sell topics, but the long and frequesnt discussions abou RS> t stores and mail order places. vey good idea Sincerely, Allan E. Levy From: jayw@black_dahlia (Jay Weissler) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 20:58:38 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) 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? > Unfortunately, not all of us get rec.* or alt.* (limits on bandwidth & disk space). We rely on sci.* and whatever cross posting people do. Also, some of us can't ftp across our firewalls. It would be great if we could get FAQs via EMAIL. By the way, it seemed like FAQs were getting posted monthly (not the pointers to the FAQs, but real live FAQs) for awhile there. Has this practice been discontinued? There seem to be some new ones that I'd sure like to get. Regardless of the outcome of the re-org, I'd like to thank all those involved in providing this wonderful resource. jayw From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 24 Apr 1994 06:29:56 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) jayw@black_dahlia (Jay Weissler) writes: >Unfortunately, not all of us get rec.* or alt.* (limits on bandwidth & >disk space). We rely on sci.* and whatever cross posting people do. Have you tried requesting specific groups? >Also, some of us can't ftp across our firewalls. It would be great if we >could get FAQs via EMAIL. Whenever I can look into this in enough detail the entire archive will be available by e-mail, which includes the FAQs. >By the way, it seemed like FAQs were getting >posted monthly (not the pointers to the FAQs, but real live FAQs) for >awhile there. Has this practice been discontinued? Apparently. It looks like I will soon be autoposting them from the archive. One way or another, they will eventually be regularly posted again, hopefully after I get some feedback on posting frequency and so on. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: hurleyj@netcom.com (Jim Hurley) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 07:26:07 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) I'm in favor of expanding the name-space to a small number of groups, several for freshwater, one or two for brackish, and several for marine, with reef perhaps separate. Also one or two general topics, like beginners, commerce, etc. The GEnie network has an aquarium category that is part of their Pet roundtable. The following is the list of topics in that category, it may serve as way of trying to cover all bases. Perhaps someone could find a few more ideas in this list: Category 8 The Aquarium J.MAGUIRE No. Subject Msgs Status Author 1 Welcome to the Aquarium 211 Open T.KESSLER [Aqua*Tom] 2 Special Events and Notices 2 Open T.KESSLER [Aqua*Tom] 3 Discus Care 205 Open D.MCDERMOTT6 4 Chat and general conversations 624 Open T.KESSLER [Aqua*Tom] 5 Aquarium Society Listings 44 Open T.KESSLER [Aqua*Tom] 6 Fish-op suggestion Box 15 Open T.KESSLER [Aqua*Tom] 7 Ponds and Water Gardens 39 Open T.KESSLER [Aqua*Tom] 8 Newsletter Articles 45 Open T.KESSLER [Aqua*Tom] 9 Catfish 150 Open D.MCDERMOTT6 10 Oscars 44 Open A.HARRISON1 [Andy] 11 Sick Fish 329 Open A.HATTYAR 12 Breeding Grounds 365 Open J.SZETO1 [John] 13 African Cichlids 106 Open A.SHAMAS3 [Jamie] 14 South American Cichlids 46 Open A.SHAMAS3 [Jamie] 15 FEEDeeding Your Fish 172 Open D.MCDERMOTT6 16 Marine Fish 221 Open HTZEUTSCHLER [DAVE] 17 Aquatic Plants 251 Open B.SMITH128 18 Bettas-all about them 199 Open W.LEBERG [HEATHER] 19 Octopuses! 41 Open E.JOHNSTON6 [Dish] 20 Filterations and such 169 Open J.SZETO1 [John] 21 Anything for my fish! 56 Open J.SZETO1 [John] 22 Aquarium Mail Order Sources 48 Open R.YU 23 Home Remedies 4 Open R.YU 24 Water life that dosen't fit anywhere 112 Open R.YU 25 Marine life that dosen't fit anywhere 12 Open R.YU 26 FISH AND THE AQUARIUM 15 Open G.MILLER59 27 BUILDING MARINE EQUIPMENT 47 Open I.MARIA 28 Help for Beginners 330 Open T.KRAMER7 [Trevor] 29 Shipping fish 10 Open J.LEVINSON3 [Jody] 30 The Computer Aquarist 21 Open I.MARIA 31 SIMPLY GOLDFISH 257 Open B.SMITH128 32 Used Aquarium Products For Sale 7 Open S.LUPINSKI1 33 Heaters, Which Work For You? 35 Open G.OLSEN1 [>PET*DUDE<] 34 Lighting Your Aquarium 45 Open G.OLSEN1 [>PET*DUDE<] 35 Fish Tales 187 Open C.STUCKEY [Cindy] 36 Reef Aquariums 35 Open C.MCMANIC [MANIAC] 37 Snails, Snails, and Snails 42 Open L.SPANGLER [LeeS] 38 Livebearers!-Guppies, Mollies, Platies 81 Open J.ANES3 [Jose Anes] 39 Product Reviews 16 Open T.KRAMER7 [Trevor] 40 Under-gravel filters? 46 Open G.FRECK 41 Fish Books/Literature 21 Open G.FRECK 42 Starting a new tank. 31 Open G.FRECK 43 Aquarium TIPS & TRICKS! 8 Open G.FRECK 44 Fishy question,.... 7 Open B.HICKS7 [Ricky] 45 Killifish 9 Open E.VANDERBERG [Evert] 46 What is it and what does it do? 11 Open J.SMITH1491 47 Virtual (Electronic) Fish and more 13 Open J.KIRCHNER2 [Jose'] 48 catalog tutors 26 Open C.DANNA [Carla] 49 River Tank Systems - Ecosystem in tank 1 Open MAGGIEMAE [Trina] -- Jim Hurley --- hurleyj@netcom.com From: Will.Dyson@launchpad.unc.edu (William S. Dyoyson) Date: 24 Apr 1994 20:49:35 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <1994Apr19.173201.20544@ichips.intel.com>, Patti Beadles 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. > >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? > Just for the record (as if anybody cared) I to am very happy with the current arangement. The way I see it, the number of posts on any one subject is going to stay the same even if that subject has its own group. Besides, trn makes it so EASY to select those articles that are of interest to you... Obselfinterest: I now read messages on most topics and I would hate to have to keep track of more groupes than nessisary. -Will "its not worth the trouble" Dyson -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ \ The above does not represent OIT, UNC-CH, laUNChpad, or its other users. / ------------------------------------------------------------------------ From: pattib@ichips.intel.com (Patti Beadles) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 1994 21:22:44 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) If this reorg takes place. I'd recommend adding the group rec.aquaria.wrong.newsgroup.bozo for the inevitable pile of, "that doesn't belong here. Take it THERE," messages that will overrun all of the groups as soon as somebody has to make a decision about where to post a message. -- Patti Beadles 503/696-4358 | I don't speak for Intel, nor vice-versa. pattib@ichips.intel.com | 75555.767@compuserve.com | If it wasn't for the last minute, or just yell, "Hey, Patti!" | I'd never get anything done! From: horus@netcom.com (cis productions) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 1994 15:49:48 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) >The way I see it, the number of posts on any one subject is going to >stay the same even if that subject has its own group. Besides, trn >makes it so EASY to select those articles that are of interest to >you... but you've got to admit....all those specialty forums that were posted from the list of forums on genie did make you drool for just a second, didn't they? i'm not on genie, so i wouldn't know, but by the titles listed it seems pretty specific. -- |=====================================================================| | horus@netcom.com | views expressed are the author's | | carved in stone productions | intellectual property... | |=====================================================================| From: hurleyj@netcom.com (Jim Hurley) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 03:13:33 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) horus@netcom.com (cis productions) writes: > >The way I see it, the number of posts on any one subject is going to > >stay the same even if that subject has its own group. Besides, trn > >makes it so EASY to select those articles that are of interest to > >you... >but you've got to admit....all those specialty forums that were posted >from the list of forums on genie did make you drool for just a second, >didn't they? >i'm not on genie, so i wouldn't know, but by the titles listed it seems >pretty specific. >-- >|=====================================================================| >| horus@netcom.com | views expressed are the author's | >| carved in stone productions | intellectual property... | >|=====================================================================| GEnie does not have the type of newsgroups here on USEnet. Instead they have roundtables (equivalent to major newsgroups here), categories within roundtables (equivalent to the minor newsgroup name (eg rec.arts.), and then topics within the categories. Since you have to pay for GEnie, you would expect serious postings, but that isn't so - they are pretty much like they are here. I used to follow the GEnie Aquarium groups fairly actively, but I stopped a short time ago. I still follow the GEnie Atari groups because they have very good Atari ST support and the MIDI group as well. Overall. I'm pretty happy with GEnie, but this is off-topic... -- Jim Hurley --- hurleyj@netcom.com From: dkpurks@telenet.com (David Purks) Date: 26 Apr 94 14:06:26 GMT Newsgroups: sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p24ed$m25@mercury.mcs.com>, Kenneth Skiles wrote: >Wouldn't be easier to keep it simple? >How about: >rec.aquaria.freshwater >rec.aquaria.marine >rec.aquaria.marketplace >rec.aquaria.misc > I agree with the above, though I'm not convinced there's enough traffic to justify a ".misc". What I like most about the above proposal is that it does **not** include a ".newcomer" group. People who have questions / problems who are not newcomers often have trouble attracting enough attention to their questions. When someone just starting out posts to a .newbie group and gets no response, where do you think he's going to go? Dave Purks ..!uunet!telenet.com!dkpurks From: glen@tegra.com (Glen Osterhout) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 14:46:51 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2p94pe$bhi@gap.cco.caltech.edu> laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) writes: >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. Yeah, its kind of like taking two shades of grey and arbitrarily calling one of them black and the other white. I am beginning to think that we should just forget about how logical the division is and concentrate on how well it will achieve the goal, ie how evenly it will split up traffic and minimize crossposting. The freshwater/marine division would probably accomplish that. Brackish water subjects could be crossposted to both groups; there aren't many posts on that subject anyway. From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 15:24:05 GMT Newsgroups: sci.aquaria Subject: Reorganization; if you build it they will come "Newsgroups abhor a vacuum" There is a phenpmenon on Usenet that if you create a group it will fill up. Besides the aquaria groups, I created comp.fonts and the restaurant review group (whataver it's called now). These wern't easy to get created as there were a lot of "but there's no discussion about fonts/restaurants presently anywhere on the net". My response was : "of course, there's nowhere to house them!" Look at what happens now. Oleg, George, whoever, do not read every post. Unless your subjectc line grabe their attention, it's gonna get skipped. Would Oleg read every posting rec.aquaria.killies? Yes, (up until the point where the traffic was too high, at which time it's split again into rec.aquaria.killies.dull.lampeyes and rec.aquaria.killies.gorgeus.aphyosemios.especially.blue.gularis. Would I ? Yes. I don't have the time anymore to answer every question in the aquaria groups as I once did, but I would probably do it for .killies. Would George read every .plants posting ? I don't know George but I'm gonna stick my neck out on the line and say yes. With the multitude of online services such as AOL, Delphi and now especially compuserve, just their interest in a particular subject in a particular field of interest probably warrents usenet group creation simply by administrative fiat. It's my understading that ci$ have "roundtable discussions" about killies, rainbows, etc. A .killies newsgroup would serve as a logical concatenation of usenet and and ci$ discussion about killies. The specialists will take their place. The generalists will still answer what questions they can. My suggestions about trying to develop a new aquaria newsgroup name taxa are: 1) don't let preconceived notions about names and readership bother you 2) plan for 3-5 years away, not now. 3) analyze what is extant now : o Articles asking for help - and answers (like a Q&A colum) o Articles posted to share information (Like newspaper articles) o Articles about specialized fields The "I like it the way it is now" crown, I'm afraid re going to be left behind. Usenet and internet are experienceing explosive growth and this boat is bulging at the seams. Although newsreader technology is good, and getting better, it can not keep up to this rate of growth and present information in a usable fashion to the masses, thus we must apply a bit of taxonomy here. I have not made any suggestions to what groups should be created here (I use killies merely as an example) but I do suggest that any questions/answers /beginners group be subdivided into tank health and fish health. Remember that keeping tropical fish is the second largest hobby in the world, behind only stamp collecting. -- Richard J. Sexton rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com rsexton@navtel.gn.com From: lsarakon@hila.hut.fi (Liisa Sarakontu) Date: 26 Apr 1994 17:34:08 GMT Newsgroups: sci.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization; if you build it they will come In article rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) writes: > >I have not made any suggestions to what groups should be created here (I >use killies merely as an example) but I do suggest that any questions/answers >/beginners group be subdivided into tank health and fish health. > I oppose! My opinion is that at least 95% of fish diseases are caused by bad water quality, so tank and fish health can't be separated. Liisa Sarakontu Helsinki University of Technology INTERNET: lsarakon@hila.hut.fi From: dkpurks@telenet.com (David Purks) Date: 27 Apr 94 12:40:11 GMT Newsgroups: sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) ~Date: Tue, 26 Apr 1994 16:30:49 -0700 ~From: uunet!radon.EECS.Berkeley.EDU!ljmassa (Lauren Massa-Lochridge) To: dkpurks@telenet.com Organization: University of California, Berkeley In article <2926@telenet.telenet.com> you write: >In article <2p24ed$m25@mercury.mcs.com>, Kenneth Skiles wrote: >>Wouldn't be easier to keep it simple? >>How about: >>rec.aquaria.freshwater >>rec.aquaria.marine >>rec.aquaria.marketplace >>rec.aquaria.misc >> > > I agree with the above, though I'm not convinced there's enough > traffic to justify a ".misc". What I like most about the above > proposal is that it does **not** include a ".newcomer" group. > People who have questions / problems who are not newcomers often > have trouble attracting enough attention to their questions. When > someone just starting out posts to a .newbie group and gets no > response, where do you think he's going to go? > > Dave Purks > ..!uunet!telenet.com!dkpurks > I agree. And I'd like to add that sometimes the problems of beginners can be of interest to those with some experience. Also, there are a lot of people who are beginners in one area and experts in another. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Lauren Massa-Lochridge ljmassa@delft.berkeley.edu Systems Integration Lab, IEOR Univ. of Cal. Berkeley ljmassa@radon.eecs.berkeley.edu CIM/BCAM, EECS <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< From: krogers@canopus (Keith Rogers) Date: 27 Apr 1994 20:36:53 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Glen Osterhout (glen@tegra.com) wrote: >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, I don't understand what distinction you find between the two but I personally don't care if it's .saltwater or .marine, others probably do. > I am also not sure that the traffic >justifies a lot of sub-categories at this point in time. There are two which definitely do: plant tanks and reef tanks, for a subcategory for each of the main divisions. Aside from those two it depends upon who you ask as to whether or not a particular group has "enough" traffic to warrant a dedicated subgroup. I think cichlids do for example. -- Keith Rogers krogers@sim.es.com From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) Date: 28 Apr 1994 03:28:15 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) krogers@canopus (Keith Rogers) writes: >Glen Osterhout (glen@tegra.com) wrote: >> I am also not sure that the traffic >>justifies a lot of sub-categories at this point in time. >...it >depends upon who you ask as to whether or not a particular group has >"enough" traffic to warrant a dedicated subgroup. I think cichlids do >for example. Oleg's description of the killie mailing list has convinced me that killifish have more than enough of a following to earn a newsgroup. I, for one, find a newsgroup much easier to read than a mailing list, and I think that a good and sufficient reason to create a newsgroup is the existence of an active and lasting mailing list. Presuming that the list people want a newsgroup, that is. Speaking of which, if it hasn't been mentioned already someone should probably mention this reorg discussion on such mailing lists. Those who read an aquarium mailing list but not the newsgroups have as much a stake in any split that might result as we do. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: vaanderi@benji.Colorado.EDU (Eric W Vaandering) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 1994 23:58:16 GMT Newsgroups: sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Results: What aquaria groups do you get Well, the results as they are are in. I heard from 45 sites representing about 433,000 possible users of the Usenet. (.edu sites tend to be quite large :) ) Rec.aquaria is not propagated to 8 of those sites, missing 9700 users. Alt.aquaria 12 19100 Sci.aquaria 5 12000 So, it looks like alt is the least propagated site. I should mention that one of the respondants accounting for 6k of the people not receiving rec was from IBM who it seems get the rest of the rec groups, so perhaps this is just a slip-up. Eric -- Eric Vaandering Physics Department University of Colorado Boulder CO 80302 vaanderi@rintintin.colorado.edu ______________________________________________________________________________ I have a 9600bps modem and 1.5bps fingers From: maa@sisd.kodak.com (Mark Armstrong soft) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 1994 14:17:42 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) I just started up my tanks after a long layoff (around 8 years). I used to believe the best method was to throw in a UGF and run the diatom every couple of months (with a monthly 20% water change). My was I surprised when I started to read rec.aquaria. The first thing I was very interested in was the new filter methods. I did not want to read about "little white spots on my bala shark", what do Oscars eat, etc. I wanted to learn all about new hardware, skimmers, trickle filters, heating cables, etc. I did not care if it was for fresh or salt water, just wanted to understand all the technology. I think this should be a newsgroup. aquaria.hardware Not sure how much traffic would be here, much of the info is repeated. After reading countless articles about wet/dry filters, I really don't want wade thru them anymore. It would be nice to have these seperated. The next group- aquaria.diseases This group would discuss ways of dianostic and cure for diseases, water quality and other topics concerning the health of your fish. It should include both fresh, marine or reef systems. Methods for marine fish can still be applied for freshwater. Next group- aquaria.breeding Should be clear, discussions of breeding methods of all types of fish. I still feel that info on breeding Discus can be useful in breeding guppies although the methods could be very different. aquaria.plants I think there is enough traffic for this group, maybe it should also include saftey issues? The last groups- aquaria.marine.fish aquaria.fw.fish The discussions of fish and their behavior. Here I did break this up into marine and freshwater, not sure if all fish should be in one group. Kind of ignored corals and such, I would include them in marine group. So, instead of creating the group along the type of system (reef tanks, fish only marine tanks), create groups on the info you wish to get or supply. Building a acrylic tank tank, check into hardware. Breeding killies, check out the breeding group. Is Mr. Booth still alive, read aquaria.plants. in summary- aquaria.hardware aquaria.diseases aquaria.breeding aquaria.plants aquaria.marine.fish aquaria.fw.fish or aquaria.fish ______________________________________________________________ Mark Armstrong maa@raster.Kodak.COM ______________________________________________________________ From: hahn@eskimo.com (Steve Hahn) Date: 29 Apr 94 06:19:46 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) Organization: Eskimo North (206) For-Ever > > .brackish > .fw.cichlids > .fw.general > .fw.killies > .fw.plants > .misc > .sw.fish-only > .sw.reef > .tech > No one asked, but here's my opinion: fw: Do whatever the fw enthusiasts want; I won't read them anyway. sw: As I currently keep fish only, but am interested in eventually graduating to reef animals, I would read both of the groups listed. For my money, a single group would suffice. If enough people think otherwise, I'll live. brackish: I woudn't read this, but see little need for it, either. tech, misc, etc: I would end up reading these looking for the tech or misc info related to SW, and have to sort through the FW tech and misc posts (much like the current situation). Since the reason I support the reorg is to reduce the sorting I have to do, this would not be acceptable. I would prefer to not create these groups, and have the posts in the appropriate FW or SW groups. -- -- Steve Hahn hahn@eskimo.com From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 1994 04:58:58 GMT Newsgroups: sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Results: What aquaria groups do you get In article , Eric W Vaandering wrote: > >So, it looks like alt is the least propagated site. I should mention >that one of the respondants accounting for 6k of the people not receiving >rec was from IBM who it seems get the rest of the rec groups, so perhaps >this is just a slip-up. Perhaps. More likely some pissant admin is aliasing it to something else. I'd be curious to know the real reason. Or perhaps IBM hates fish. They're wrong about everything else so they may as well be wrong about this too. -- Richard J. Sexton rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com rsexton@navtel.gn.com From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 1994 08:50:00 GMT Newsgroups: sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Results: What aquaria groups do you get In article , Eric W Vaandering wrote: >that one of the respondants accounting for 6k of the people not receiving >rec was from IBM who it seems get the rest of the rec groups, so perhaps >this is just a slip-up. Or deliberate malice. Recall what I was saying about the deep-seated biases against *.aquaria groups. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Mon, 2 May 1994 05:53:36 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2puck8$1um@subway.echonyc.com>, Peter Dworkin wrote: >I hope you won't find a comment from a lurker objectionble, but I notice >so much cross-posting, intentional or not, between aquaria groups, in >alt, sci, and rec, and elsewhere, that I fear a reorganization would not >solve the problems it is meant to address. The reason there is so much cross-posting is that not all sites currently receieve the various existant .aquaria newsgroups. THAT is not going to be fixed by the reorg. In many cases it's due to particular sites not receiving ALT or REC hierarchies due to company policies -- those who pay salaries and the phone and power bills get to dictate what a site receives. Most people on the NET receive and read REC.aquaria. This is also the group with most of the aquaria traffic. Splitting it up into several categories will ease the load on the readers. Wading throuhg 100 articles iunstead of 500 will help. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: mws@mael.soest.hawaii.edu (Michael Sawyer) Date: Tue, 3 May 1994 21:19:12 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Straw poll - results This is a repost of the results from the straw poll; it looks like our local news server ate my previous post. (Dustin: E-Mail me when/if you get this one. Thanks.) Vote Topic: aquaria-reorganize Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 60 (96.77%) No Votes: 2 (3.23%) Yes-No Votes: 58 Vote Topic: rec.pets.aquaria Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 2 (3.23%) No Votes: 55 (88.71%) Yes-No Votes: -53 Vote Topic: aquaria.freshwater Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 60 (96.77%) No Votes: 2 (3.23%) Yes-No Votes: 59 Vote Topic: aquaria.saltwater Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 9 (14.52%) No Votes: 40 (64.52%) Yes-No Votes: -31 Vote Topic: aquaria.marine Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 52 (83.87%) No Votes: 9 (14.52%) Yes-No Votes: 43 Vote Topic: aquaria.brackish Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 15 (24.19%) No Votes: 40 (64.52%) Yes-No Votes: -25 Vote Topic: aquaria.plants Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 24 (38.71%) No Votes: 34 (54.84%) Yes-No Votes: -10 Vote Topic: aquaria.tech Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 25 (40.32%) No Votes: 37 (59.68%) Yes-No Votes: -12 Vote Topic: aquaria.misc Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 27 (43.55%) No Votes: 34 (54.84%) Yes-No Votes: -7 Vote Topic: aquaria.info Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 22 (35.48%) No Votes: 37 (59.68%) Yes-No Votes: -15 Vote Topic: aquaria.new Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 5 (8.06%) No Votes: 58 (93.55%) Yes-No Votes: -53 Vote Topic: aquaria.help Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 7 (11.29%) No Votes: 53 (85.48%) Yes-No Votes: -46 Vote Topic: aquaria.forsale Total Votes: 62 Yes Votes: 22 (35.48%) No Votes: 40 (64.52%) Yes-No Votes: -18 Vote Key - Number refers to column: 0: aquaria-reorganize 1: rec.pets.aquaria 2: aquaria.freshwater 3: aquaria.saltwater 4: aquaria.marine 5: aquaria.brackish 6: aquaria.plants 7: aquaria.tech 8: aquaria.misc 9: aquaria.info 10: aquaria.new 11: aquaria.help 12: aquaria.forsale -VOTE COLUMN- 0000000000111 0123456789012 ============= YNYNYNYYNNNNN "Nick Plummer" YNYNYNNNYNNNY "R.K. House, Martin Marietta Energy Systems" YNYAYYYAAAAAA "Troy \"AC\" Rappe; Insight Industries" YNYAYYNNYYNYN YAYNYYYYYYNNN Darren Smith YNYNYNNNNANNN David A Dunn - Utah State University YNYNYNYNYNNNY David Brockman Wheeler YNYNYNNYYYNNY Davin Milun YAYNYANNYNNNY Dr. Richard R. Hardy YNYAAAYNYNYNY Enes Elia YNYYNNNYNNNNY Eric Hanneman YNYNYNNNYNNNN Eric W Vaandering YAYAYNYNNNNNY James Hannon Colopy YNYNYNNNNNNNN Jason Rosenberg YNYYNNNNNYNNN Jeff Pfohl YNYAYNNNNNNNN Jim Boss YAYNYYNNYNNNY LEONE001@mc.duke.edu YNYNYAAAANNNN Liisa Sarakontu NAAAAAAAAAAAA Mark.Hapner@Eng.Sun.COM (Mark Hapner) YNYYNNNYNNNNY Michael Sawyer YNYNYNNNNNNNN Monet YNYNYNNYYNNAA Owain James Bennallack YNYNYNAYYNNNY Robert.Dusek@Eng.Sun.COM (Robert Dusek) YNYNYNANNNNNN Steve Hahn YNYAYNYNNYNNN V2081A@VM.TEMPLE.EDU (TED NORTHROP) YAYNYYYNYNNNN beckman@felix.cs.nyu.edu (Leah Beckman) YNYNYNNYNNNNY belas@mbimail.umd.edu (Bob Belas) YNYNYNYYYANNN biow@cs.UMD.EDU YNYAYNNNNYNNN christos@nature.Berkeley.EDU (Christos Vasilikiotis) YNYNYNYNYNNNN davidw@hp-vcd.vcd.hp.com (David Wetchler) YNYNYYYYYYNNY dkahn@interaccess.com (David Kahn) ANYAYAAYYNNAY dourt@meaddata.com (Tim Dour) YNYNYYYYYYNYY dow@kpc.com (Chris Dow) YNYYNNYNNNNNN glen@tegra.com (Glen Osterhout) YNYAYAYNNYNNN hoganson@cemvax.cem.msu.edu (Curtis W. Hoganson) YAYNYAAYAYYAY joc102@psu.edu (Jack Chernega) YAYNYANNNYNNN johnson@tegra.com (Robert Johnson) ANYNYYNNNNNNN jsmith@eng.iac.honeywell.com (Jerry Smith) YYYAYYYYYYYYY kangaloo@pixie.udw.ac.za (R R Kangaloo) YNYNYNNNNNNNY kem@aluxpo.att.com YNYNYYYYNYNNN kerri@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Kerri Hohmann) YNYNYNNNNNNNN kjw@cbemf.att.com YNAYYAAYNYYYN kkaaz@hpwtwe0.cup.hp.com YNYNYNYYYYNNN laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) YNYNYYYYYNNNY malloy@osprey.hac.com (Jerry Malloy) YNYNYNNNYNNNN mike@dsinc.com (Mike Kondratovich) YNYAYANNNYNNN mlatimer@uclink.berkeley.edu (Matthew John Latimer) YNYNYYNYYYNNY oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) YNYYNNNNNNNNN oxton@adrs1.dseg.ti.com (Gail Oxton) YNYYANNNNNNNN papakostas@gmd.de. (Panagiotis Papakostas) NNNNNNNNNNNNN pattib@ichips.intel.com (Patti Beadles) YNYYNNYNYNNNN ph@cs.uow.edu.au (Rev Dr Phil Herring) YNYNYNNNNYNNN s5ubgs@mr2.fnma.COM (Benjamin G. Slade) YNYAYNNNYYNNN sack0015@gold.tc.umn.edu (Glenn A. Sacks) YNYAYNNNNANNN salmon@cco.caltech.edu (Lynn Garry Salmon) YNYNYNNNNNNNN sasala@itd.nrl.navy.mil (Thomas M. Sasala) YNYAAYYYYYYYY smithwt@med.unc.edu (William Thomas Smith) YNYNYNNYYNNNN spz@serpens.rhein.de (S.P.Zeidler) YYYNYYYNNANYN stevey@cs.washington.edu (Stephen Yegge) YNYAYYYYNYNNY svr@engin.umich.edu YNNNNNYYNNNYY toms%bilbo@ihs.com (Tom Stockman) YNYNYNYYNYNNN trigg@jane.cs.waikato.ac.nz (Len Trigg) YNYNYNNNYNNNN weathea@gov.on.ca (Alison Weatherston) YNYYNNNNNNNNN weil_j@defiance.hsc.colorado.edu (John V. Weil) ANYNYNNYNNNNN wsjenks@iastate.edu -- 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: C3363F8BE94B4D2A32B93E1A19B6B925 From: slhpv@cc.usu.edu Date: 4 May 94 00:18:46 MDT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results In article , mws@mael.soest.hawaii.edu (Michael Sawyer) writes: > This is a repost of the results from the straw poll; it looks like our > local news server ate my previous post. (Dustin: E-Mail me when/if > you get this one. Thanks.) > [All except positive results removed] > Vote Topic: aquaria.freshwater > Yes-No Votes: 59 > > Vote Topic: aquaria.marine > Yes-No Votes: 43 > Well I'd say that pretty well sums it up. Lets do the reorg, but keep it simple. Dave Dunn From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Laurence) Date: 4 May 1994 14:43:07 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results mws@mael.soest.hawaii.edu (Michael Sawyer) writes: >This is a repost of the results from the straw poll; it looks like our >local news server ate my previous post. (Dustin: E-Mail me when/if >you get this one. Thanks.) To summarize, we have the following (I have sorted the groups in order of decending popularity, and removed the less popular of the redundant pair .marine/.saltwater): Topic: percent in favor Reorganize: 96.77% Move to rec.pets: 3.23% .freshwater: 96.77% .marine: 83.87% .misc: 43.55% .tech: 40.32% .plants: 38.71% .info: 35.48% .forsale: 35.48% .brackish: 24.19% .help: 11.29% .new: 8.06% The spaces are where I see the natural breaks in the numbers. The votes to reorganize or not and to move to rec.pets.* or not seem pretty clear. I thought we had .reefs on here, since it was mentioned a few times, but I guess not. The votes on the middle groups are interesting. .misc, .tech, and .plants, which got quite a bit of support in the discussion, did not do a great deal better than .info or .forsale, which (to my mind) did not. I am surprised at the good showing of .forsale, given the small number of such posts. I see a number of ways to interpret these results: #1 "The majority wins." This is identical to, in this case, "Only create groups when you have to, so just create the groups with overwhelming support." .freshwater .marine #2 "Create everything with significant support: their existence doesn't hurt anyone who doesn't want them." .freshwater .marine .misc .tech .plants .info .forsale #3 "Split by aquarium type, when there is reasonable support" .freshwater .marine .plants #4 "Split to keep together topics of wide interest to both marine and freshwater aquarists" .freshwater .marine .misc .tech .forsale (.info deleted as semi-redundant with .tech and .misc) I guess that's enough to draw some comments. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: fyp044@ee-fyp.bham.ac.uk (Simon Jerram) Date: 04 May 94 16:59:05 BST Newsgroups: alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results That's a lot of groups. From: mark.stephens@gsfc.nasa.gov (mark stephens) Date: Wed, 04 May 1994 14:09:43 -0400 Newsgroups: rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results Although the straw poll sliped right past me I wouldn't mind giving this grouping a try: > #1 "The majority wins." This is identical to, in this case, "Only > create groups when you have to, so just create the groups with > overwhelming support." > > .freshwater > .marine My only concern is the ability of folks being able to receive groups which don't fall into the existing rec, alt, ... style of nesting. I take it the new groups will be aquaria.freshwater and aquaria.marine . Does this mean we might eventually see hamster.siberian and hamster.whatever out there? mark From: mws@mael.soest.hawaii.edu (Michael Sawyer) Date: Wed, 4 May 1994 19:35:41 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results In article <2q8c9r$7uu@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Dustin Laurence wrote: > >To summarize, we have the following (I have sorted the groups in order >of decending popularity, and removed the less popular of the redundant >pair .marine/.saltwater): > > Topic: percent in favor > > Reorganize: 96.77% > > .freshwater: 96.77% > .marine: 83.87% I should point out that all of the votes not for .marine, but for reorg/freshwater were for .saltwater, so the .marine number could really be up there at 96% also... >The spaces are where I see the natural breaks in the numbers. The >votes to reorganize or not and to move to rec.pets.* or not seem >pretty clear. I thought we had .reefs on here, since it was mentioned >a few times, but I guess not. It came up after the initial post I made, and I didn't want to go adding things after the fact. May be worth including in a formal CFV, though. -- 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: C3363F8BE94B4D2A32B93E1A19B6B925 From: mws@mael.soest.hawaii.edu (Michael Sawyer) Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 00:23:02 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results In article , mark stephens wrote: >My only concern is the ability of folks being able to receive groups which >don't fall into the existing rec, alt, ... style of nesting. I take it the All of the proposals assume that everything stays as rec.aquaria (or possibly rec.pets.aquaria, but that was highly voted against). -- 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: C3363F8BE94B4D2A32B93E1A19B6B925 From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Laurence) Date: 4 May 1994 18:25:48 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Subject Designators (M) (F) snorvich@tellabs.com (Steve Norvich) writes: > Please use appropriate subject designators. It makes it far > easier to disregard subjects that are not interesting by category. Are you aware that there is a discussion on reorganizing rec.aquaria going on right now in rec, alt, and sci.aquaria? It looks like there is an overwhelming consensus for .freshwater and .marine, at least, or so says the straw poll. Subject designators for (M) and (F) are likely to become obsolete. > By the way, I personally am interested only in marine so if there > is no (M) there is no answer. If anyone cares. If you kill all articles but those with (M), that would explain why you missed it (if you did). That's the price you pay for that kind of a killfile. I have archived the entire discussion. It is currently in incoming/reorg at the usual site. 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: Wed, 04 May 94 21:41:12 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results It seems to me that the staw poll should not be taken as absolute gospel here, since a group needs to have yes/no margin >= 100, and there were only 62 respondents to the poll. Also, there are some discrepancies, for instance, those who may have abstained in some areas when the choice was rendered irrelevant by a previous vote, i.e. if you said no to the reorg, and then abstained on the rest of the votes, that should really count as voting no on the other categories. Also, as Dustin mentioned, .reefs was mysteriously left off of the poll. But in general, I think the poll is quite informative. It will be interesting to see if we can use the straw poll as a milestone along our journey to a vote for real, or if it slows everything down... 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 Laurence) Date: 5 May 1994 03:45:18 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results mark.stephens@gsfc.nasa.gov (mark stephens) writes: >Although the straw poll sliped right past me I wouldn't mind giving this >grouping a try: >> .freshwater >> .marine >My only concern is the ability of folks being able to receive groups which >don't fall into the existing rec, alt, ... style of nesting. I take it the >new groups will be aquaria.freshwater and aquaria.marine . Does this mean >we might eventually see hamster.siberian and hamster.whatever out there? Fear not. Rest assured that if such group names were to be proposed in news.groups, they would be flamed to smouldering slag and the ashes sacrificed to Kibo. Hmm, I like them even better just as I wrote them. '.marine', that ought to get Shub-Internet's attention. I just thought it was obvious that once the rec.pets.aquaria.* idea was soundly defeated all proposed groups would go under rec.aquaria. Nothing else has been seriously proposed to my knowledge. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 14:25:37 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results Uh, it would be impossible to get rec.aquaria-reorganized passed even if your silly straw pole indicated maximum support for it. Trust me, I'm an expert on what groups you can get passed :-) What does this do for the credability of the poll, or rather the gap between what the poll indciates and what is in the real world possible, and furthermore, makes sense. Lets summarise the whole issue so far. I started this ball rolling with a "gee, maybe a .marine group might be a good idea" and groups have been suggested willy nilly (by me) and other, just to throw out ideas, a sort of green light session. It's time for a red light session where we chop some of those ideas down. I sense uniforum agreement on the following rec.aquaria.marine Saltwater stuff rec.aquaria.plants freshwater plants rec.aquaria.commerce buy&sell, mail order/store experiences The names may not be universally agreed on, but I feel division along lines such as these won't meet with too much resistence. Is there enough support for specialty groups for killifish ? Arguable. You'd get 3 - 5 postings a day in the beginning. They'd tend to be technical in nature and although it doesnt really matter to the denizens of the killifish mailing list, I'm not sure how much the general readership of *.aquaria wants to see this stuff. Personally I enjoy seeing stuff I don't understand (yet), I find it interesting. The only counter argument would be that 1 it's no sufficiently interesting to the vast majority of generalist single tank owners who just arn't interested in anything but keeping their single tank running - I'm not putting that group down, I'm a member of it myself, but I think if that were true it would be sad. Ditto for cichlids. However, perhaps we could take this approach. Rather than discuss at length what the names are going to be let's get consensus on the nature of the split. The group name straw poll was premature because it didn't take this into account. Premise: What ever we decide as a group, we can get passed. Again, you'll have to trust me on this. Reorg #0 No reorganization. Reorg #1 Leave rec.aquaria alone, add rec.aquaria.marine Reorg #2 remove rec.aquaria, create rec.a.commerce, .plants, .marine (or similar namews, I'm not married to them, the point is a division along those lines) Reorg #3 remove rec.aquaria and create about 9 groups on a variety of subject. I personally feel the latter make the most sense as it would tend to focus the attention of experts in those fields, and would provide traffic on the order of 10 posts a day. In a year or two it'llbe back up to 50 - 100; don't worry about being a low volume group, that argument has never been shown to hold water on UseNet This would be a good subject for a straw vote; we can proceed from there. I have neither the time nor facilities to conduct the vote. Any takers? Comments ? Suggestions? What am I talknig about, this is usenet, that goes without saying... :-) -- Richard J. Sexton rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com rsexton@navtel.gn.com From: keith@magnum.cb.att.com (W. Keith Brummett) Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 15:16:24 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results In article , Richard Sexton wrote: > ... > Lets summarise the whole issue so far. ... > I sense uniforum agreement on the following > > rec.aquaria.marine Saltwater stuff > rec.aquaria.plants freshwater plants > rec.aquaria.commerce buy&sell, mail order/store > experiences > > The names may not be universally agreed on, but I feel division along > lines such as these won't meet with too much resistence. > ... > Reorg #1 > Leave rec.aquaria alone, add rec.aquaria.marine > > Reorg #2 > remove rec.aquaria, create rec.a.commerce, .plants, .marine Hmmm. That's not quite the flavor I got. My impression was (and maybe this is so because it just happens to agree with my feelings on the subject :-) ) that the poll suggested the following: rec.aquaria (stays put, along with alt and sci, though alt and sci may die off eventually) rec.aquaria.freshwater (these two get added for those who want to rec.aquaria.marine specialize) This is somewhere between your reorgs #1 and #2, above, and handles the one, big division in the hobby. Plants, killies, chichlids, etc. can all comfortably reside under the freshwater group. Ditto reefs, brackish, and what-not under marine. For finer distinctions, kill files can weed out what you don't want to see. Anything that doesn't fit exactly or covers both areas goes into the general rec.aquaria group. That should handle misc questions and info, for sale, mail order, filters, DIY, and other such stuff. I guess my view is that while I don't mind some broad catagorizations, I'm gonna' read it all anyway. What I'm not particularly interested in today may be my passion tomorrow, or may at least have an application for something I do in another area. A threaded news reader will group articles of a given subject, so do we really need umpteen separate news groups? Refer to the KISS principle. JMHO, -- Keith -- | (614) 860-3187 Copyright (C) 1994, by AT&T, Room 3B202 | | attmail!wbrummett W.K.Brummett, and AT&T 6200 E. Broad St. | | wkb@cblph.att.com All rights reserved. Columbus, OH 43213 | `----------------------------------------------------------------------' From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 14:34:27 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria Subject: Re: Reorganization (was Re: Appropriate Subject Designator) In article <2q669h$ol7@gap.cco.caltech.edu>, Dustin Laurence wrote: >oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) writes: > >>Yes, the site will receive the newgroup message. But it might not do much >>of anything. > >Well, if the site doesn't want rec groups I wouldn't try to force one >on them even if we could. I meant that for sites which receive rec >groups in general but do something strange with rec.aquaria in >particular, new subgroups ought to be treated normally unless someone >there is brooding over what happened years ago. There are two classes of problem with distribution: first are the bad guys who alias sci.aquaria (and sometimes alt.aquaria) to rec.aquaria. Next are the good guys who for fun, alias all aquaria groups to sci.aquaria. The latter, if asked nicely will know it off. The former will over time vanish by attrition. This problem willl go away over time. It's much less of a problem than it was in the halcyon days of the summer of 1990. -- Richard J. Sexton rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com rsexton@navtel.gn.com From: mws@mael.soest.hawaii.edu (Michael Sawyer) Date: Thu, 5 May 1994 21:14:13 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results In article , Richard Sexton wrote: >Uh, it would be impossible to get rec.aquaria-reorganized passed even >if your silly straw pole indicated maximum support for it. Trust >me, I'm an expert on what groups you can get passed :-) Perhaps you should go back and read the initial post. That was a question of whether there should be a reorginization at all, _NOT_ if there should be a group just for that. Nobody in their right mind would ever consider that. -- 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: C3363F8BE94B4D2A32B93E1A19B6B925 From: jason@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg) Date: Fri, 06 May 94 01:50:48 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) writes: >I sense uniforum agreement on the following >rec.aquaria.marine Saltwater stuff >rec.aquaria.plants freshwater plants >rec.aquaria.commerce buy&sell, mail order/store experiences Actually, the only "uniforum" agreement I've sensed is for the 2 groups, .marine and .freshwater. However, there is broad support for several more specific groups. >Reorg #3 >remove rec.aquaria and create about 9 groups on a variety of subject. >I personally feel the latter make the most sense as it would tend to focus >the attention of experts in those fields, and would provide traffic >on the order of 10 posts a day. In a year or two it'llbe back >up to 50 - 100; don't worry about being a low volume group, that argument >has never been shown to hold water on UseNet I'm willing to second this, but lets have groups concentrated along lines of enthusiasm, like killies, cichlids, plants, brackish, reefs, etc. Lets have less of things like forsale, tech, info. The latter set would be broadly crossposted all over the place. -- 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 Laurence) Date: 6 May 1994 19:35:30 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Straw poll - results jason@lanai.cs.ucla.edu (Jason Rosenberg) writes: [reorg ideas] >I'm willing to second this, but lets have groups concentrated along lines >of enthusiasm, like killies, cichlids, plants, brackish, reefs, etc. >Lets have less of things like forsale, tech, info. The latter set >would be broadly crossposted all over the place. I've been trying to keep from posting too much on this topic, as would be my natural inclination, but I'm going to have to throw in a comment and a challenge here. I have never understood this logic. Most of the tech-type threads (trickle filters, coil denitrators, etc.) draw comments from both marine and freshwater types. George Booth's experiences with coil denitrators is a prime example of a subject that should not be limited to, say, freshwater groups. In filing archived posts we found we simply could not sensibly categorize a large number of them as freshwater, saltwater, cichlid, or anything else. I am going to challenge anyone who thinks that all subgroups should follow the type-of-animals-kept line to go through a few of the archive topics and e-mail me how I could have organized them better by creating all categories along these lines. I should point out that a large part of the archive is stuff that I just nabbed for myself before I even considered an archive. Those posts are concentrated rather heavily toward reef posts, so the systematic bias in the data is toward the type-of-animals-kept method. There are indeed a lot of reef posts in the reef directory, but also a lot of stuff that couldn't be fit there even though I saved it for its relevance to reefs. The "cross-fertilization" that occurs here, to the extent that it does, is concentrated on certain broad topics of interest to a large variety of aquarists. I think that some of those topics are as deserving of a newsgroup as, say .marine. Dustin -- The Aquaria archive is located in the /pub/aquaria directory at ftp.cco.caltech.edu From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Tue, 24 May 1994 14:47:45 GMT Newsgroups: sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Results of Straw Poll II Results of the rec.aquaria reorganization Straw Poll two. The purpose of this straw poll was to determine just how big a reorganization was deemed neccessary by the readership of *.aquaria. When this issue is agreed upon, we can start arguing about the names for new newsgroups, but until the size of the proposed split has been determined, that seems a little premature. Here is the data. First the list of voters: "Daniel L. Lovall" "John Weil" ahlers@ahlersrt.salem.ge.com amberle@epx.cis.umn.edu Anthony Friebel BOETTCHERW@uwplatt.edu cfcjc@eiu.edu (Chuck Costa) christos@nature.berkeley.edu (Christos Vasilikiotis) Crystal Bishop Darren Smith David A Dunn - Utah State University David Brockman Wheeler Davin Milun Eric W Vaandering Gary Davis Geoff R L Hines George Booth grn@alcove.apana.org.au (Geoffrey Newman) hahn@eskimo.com (Steve Hahn) hoganson@cemvax.cem.msu.edu (Curtis W. Hoganson) hurleyj@netcom.com (Jim Hurley) Jeff Pfohl John Pietrzak jsmith@eng.iac.honeywell.com (Jerry Smith) junebug@acs.bu.edu (Neil Tsutsui) kem@aluxpo.att.com kevin@elvis.wicat.com kkaaz@hpcss01.cup.hp.com (Kim Kaaz) laurence@Alice.Wonderland.Caltech.EDU (Dustin L. Laurence) lavonius@eng.utah.edu LEONE001@mc.duke.edu Liisa Sarakontu Lisa Reeve maddox@ottoman.mocten.com (Otto Maddox) maddox@ottoman.mocten.com (Otto Maddox) mattk@summit.novell.com menk_donna@Radian.COM (Menk, Donna) Michael Sawyer Nicholas Angelo Gross Owain pattib@ichips.intel.com (Patti Beadles) ph@cs.uow.edu.au (Rev Dr Phil Herring) RCTF saulius@isy.liu.se (Saulius Vilunas) spz@serpens.rhein.de (S.P.Zeidler) stevey@tungsten.seattle.geoworks.com (Steve Yegge) Trent Semeniuk William S. Dyson wkb@cblph.att.com (w.k.brummett) Here is the breakdown of how they voted: Bogus (Your poll is invalid, man) : 2 Back-off (Leave it alone, dammit) : 8 (although, one guy who voted "bogus" voted for "Back-off" as well. Big : 12 Small : 28 What ``big'' and ``small'' meant are pretty up in the air. What was interesting was that some people thought a small splt should be made into 4 groups, while others thought a big split should be made into 4 groups. I made no distintion as to what small and big meant, on purpose. Where people specified a number of groups they'd like to see, I made note of it: SMALL 2: 4 votes 3: 2 votes 4: 3 votes BIG 4: 1 vote 6: 2 votes One person though my wording was such that is was biased towards a big split. Obviously this person was never around during the creation of sci.aquaria. You've never seen bias :-) Given that the votes for a small split outweigh all other votes combined, I'd say it has consensus. It's a shallow victory for the small camp however, as they seem to be divided between small-small and big-small; ie 2 groups vs. "a couple" or a "few". My personal conclusion is as long as the split is kept to under 4 groups, you have consensus. Good! Now we can get back to arguing about the names... -- Richard J. Sexton rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com rsexton@navtel.gn.com From: vaanderi@benji.Colorado.EDU (Eric W Vaandering) Date: Tue, 24 May 1994 17:35:28 GMT Newsgroups: sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: Results of Straw Poll II In article , Richard Sexton wrote: >My personal conclusion is as long as the split is kept to under 4 >groups, you have consensus. > >Good! Now we can get back to arguing about the names... Well, my opinion is that we go with r.a.marine,freshwater, and one other group. Whether this is just r.a or r.a.misc is I guess up to what is normally done. (What is normally done.) Then, if the people in r.a.marine want to add .reefs they can discuss and decide without the input of the people over in r.a.freshwater. Same goes for .plants. I would not be opposed to .brackish group either, but I don't feel its necessary (at this time). Eric -- Eric Vaandering Physics Department University of Colorado Boulder CO 80302 vaanderi@rintintin.colorado.edu ______________________________________________________________________________ If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done. From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Tue, 7 Jun 1994 17:48:00 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group In article <1994Jun4.011126.24410@freenet.victoria.bc.ca>, Jo-Anne D. Albertson wrote: > >I've read in the FAQs that alt.,rec.,sci., are there because >some people can't get one or more . Mabey sci. was meant originally > for more brainy articals ?.But I think that if we could break >down alt.and rec. to subheadings of salt,freshwater, reefs, ect. >Would be a great idea (that's if the Freenet people don't think >it'll cause too much clutter). > > Eric > > Capital idea Eric, or Jo-Anne, whoever you are. Well, if it's ok with the freenet people it's okay with me. How about just rec.aquaria.freshwater and rec.aquaria.marine? Now we ned sombody go get that pedantic newsgroup process rolling. Note that both alt.aquaria and sci.aquaria will be unchanged and unaffected. This is not negotiable. -- Richard J. Sexton Masonic order of the MANGO/Gryphon Gang North rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com From: howardr@col.hp.com (Howard Rebel) Date: 7 Jun 1994 18:37:17 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group Richard Sexton (rs@reptiles.org) wrote: : ... : Well, if it's ok with the freenet people it's okay with me. How about : just rec.aquaria.freshwater and rec.aquaria.marine? : Now we ned sombody go get that pedantic newsgroup process rolling. : Note that both alt.aquaria and sci.aquaria will be unchanged and : unaffected. This is not negotiable. This is problematic. The creation of new groups with the old groups in place will cause problems. The cross-poster-people would cross post to old and new groups. The people interested in both fresh and marine may end up seeing the same post many times. The mix of topics on the group(s) we have provides a knowledge exchange between various segments of the hobby. What we have works to a point, do not make it worse. -- Howard Rebel howardr@col.hp.com FAX: 719-590-5701 From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 05:19:17 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group In article <2t2eot$g8k@hp-col.col.hp.com>, Howard Rebel wrote: >The people interested in both fresh and marine may end up seeing the >same post many times. A properly working non-antique news reader will mark cross-posted articles as read in all newsgroups after they are read in any one group. >The mix of topics on the group(s) we have provides a knowledge exchange >between various segments of the hobby. Anyone who wants that kind of exposure can subscribe to the sub-groups other than those of their immidiate interest. >What we have works to a point, do not make it worse. What we have is a very high volume newsgroup. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: fitzgeraldr@kenyon.edu (RCTF) Date: 8 Jun 94 16:28:34 EST Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) writes: > Howard Rebel wrote: >>The people interested in both fresh and marine may end up seeing the >>same post many times. > > A properly working non-antique news reader will mark cross-posted articles > as read in all newsgroups after they are read in any one group. I find arguments based on capabilities of newsreaders difficult to accept. Mine doesn't support killfiles, for instance, so all the people who answer complaints with "So just put him in a killfile if he's being obnoxious" do me no good. There are plenty of us still dealing with antique, non-properly- working readers. Also, cross-posted articles *do* take up more bandwidth, even if you don't read them twice. >>The mix of topics on the group(s) we have provides a knowledge exchange >>between various segments of the hobby. > > Anyone who wants that kind of exposure can subscribe to the sub-groups other > than those of their immidiate interest. When I voted for a "small" split, by which I meant "the smallest politics will allow, preferably only two groups," I went on to say that the more specialized a group is, the more *useless* it is to me. I have broad interests, and find that lots of people have things to say that catch my attention, not just the livebearer-breeders or the plant-raisers or any other tiny slice of this group. Likewise, a lot of topics are of interest to everyone who's got an aquarium, like what brand of pump is quietest, etc., and the more split-up a discussion gets, the less synergism you get. >>What we have works to a point, do not make it worse. > > What we have is a very high volume newsgroup. Friend, you don't understand. There are groups that get one to two *hundred* messages a day. Rec.aquaria is only, what, twenty to fifty? I call that medium to light volume. I don't think it's enough to require a split at all, but if we must, please keep it small. -Rachel From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Laurence) Date: 9 Jun 1994 03:24:33 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group fitzgeraldr@kenyon.edu (RCTF) writes: >I find arguments based on capabilities of newsreaders difficult to >accept. I guess you are the only authority on what you will accept. However, a number of smaller groups are generally more friendly to a wider spectrum of newsreaders. >Friend, you don't understand. There are groups that get one to two *hundred* >messages a day. Rec.aquaria is only, what, twenty to fifty? I call that >medium to light volume. I don't think it's enough to require a split at all, >but if we must, please keep it small. We should not be bound by the mistakes of other groups. We should do whatever is collectively best for *us*, not what is agreed upon by another group. For all of you reef types against a split, consider this; Charles Delbeek has looked briefly at the *.aquaria groups, but will not read them because of the volume. I for one would rather see Charles reading and posting to the group. That is an (admittedly anecdotal) illustration of why I believe that we can serve a much larger audience of people with a split, preferably into more than two groups. Given that Charles has what I think is a reasonably primitive newsreader, it also serves to illustrate why I think that the newsreader-challenged are better served by a split. Dustin From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 08:06:58 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group In article <1994Jun8.162834.499@kcvax1>, RCTF wrote: >I find arguments based on capabilities of newsreaders difficult to accept. >Mine doesn't support killfiles, for instance, so all the people who answer Newsreaders are in public domain. You can easily track down a near-by archive, get the sources and build yourself a more sophisticated newsreader. More to the point. Let's take it as a given that there will be is a small percentage of readers of this group who both will be subscribing to all *.aquaria.* newsgroups, and have obsolite newsreaders with severely limited capabilities. I still don't see it as a valid reason not to split rec.aquaria. >working readers. Also, cross-posted articles *do* take up more bandwidth, even >if you don't read them twice. As far as I recall the cnews code, x-posted articles are transmitted as a single piece of text that is multiply linked only after it is unpacked. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: howardr@col.hp.com (Howard Rebel) Date: 9 Jun 1994 12:11:26 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group I am NOT in favor of creating additional groups with the old ones in place. I would not like to see sci.aquaria, alt.aquaria, rec.aquaria, rec.aquaria.marine, and rec.aquaria.fresh. Iff we need a change lets go about finding out what it should be in a rational fashion. The first thing would be to poll the users and find out how many vote: 1. Do not split. 2. Split. 3. Do not care. It may be a good idea to ask the users who want a split why they want it. The second thing we need to find out is if we still need three groups to ensure that everyone now reading the group can get it. Once we know how many people would be left out by removing one or two of the current groups we can look into options. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have used several news readers. The last two I have tried were called tass and tin. Neither of these two readers seemed to know how to filter out cross-posted articles. What PD new readers do? -- Howard Rebel howardr@col.hp.com FAX: 719-590-5701 From: jbanas@delphi.com (John Banas) Date: 8 Jun 1994 11:05:03 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about thi Actually I don`t think this group is busy at all. Soc.roots (genealogy) gets on an average to 80-120 posts a day. I don`t think this group needs to split. Splitting it may kill it. I wouldn`t want to have 4 groups to download when one is fine. Many providers only carry a certain groups and splitting this group may result in some people not getting any at all. This group is carried by alt.,rec, and sci. . If one splits they all do right? Then you split to 3 groups- you have 9 (3 each). Such a headache. Unless this group really takes off, I wouldn`t split. In soc.roots their thinking of splitting too. So many posts are about splitting that many people are getting mad. Your spending all the time reading split posts and no time learning. John. (just my opinion) From: vaanderi@benji.Colorado.EDU (Eric Vaandering) Date: Wed, 8 Jun 1994 14:31:22 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about thi In article <9406080702594.DLITE.jbanas@delphi.com>, John Banas wrote: >Actually I don`t think this group is busy at all. Soc.roots (genealogy) gets >on an average to 80-120 posts a day. I don`t think this group needs to >split. Splitting it may kill it. I wouldn`t want to have 4 groups to >download when one is fine. Many providers only carry a certain groups and >splitting this group may result in some people not getting any at all. This >group is carried by alt.,rec, and sci. . If one splits they all do right? >Then you split to 3 groups- you have 9 (3 each). Such a headache. No, there will be no changes to sci. and alt. Sci serves a purpose (by charter) different from the other two. Alt is a bastard child, necessary at one time but increasingly less so. May it die a quick death. Eric -- Eric Vaandering Physics Department University of Colorado Boulder CO 80302 vaanderi@rintintin.colorado.edu ______________________________________________________________________________ Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 04:24:43 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about thi In article <9406080702594.DLITE.jbanas@delphi.com>, John Banas wrote: >split. Splitting it may kill it. I don't see how or why a split into a sw and a fw subgroups would kill rec.aquaria. >download when one is fine. Many providers only carry a certain groups and >splitting this group may result in some people not getting any at all. This It is highly unlikely that a NET access provider would accept the rec hierarchy and the rec.aquaria group, but go to a special effort to reject rec.aquaria.saltwater. Such extreme, unreasoning prejudice against salt water aquariums, this is very improbable. >group is carried by alt.,rec, and sci. . If one splits they all do right? No. Only rec would be split. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: jbanas@delphi.com (John Banas) Date: 9 Jun 1994 09:12:59 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about thi Please explain to me why splitting one group (rec) wont split the others? On Delphi, all the groups alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria, and sci.aquaria , are all one big group. Anything posted in one group is posted into all the groups. How does splitting one not affect the others? I have heard other people who are on small net providers complain that their service doesn`t carry all groups. Prejustice does happen. These small providers can`t carry all groups. Being on Delphi, I don`t have that problem, still Delphi doesn`t carry every single group. Some groups that are small are left out. In the past 3 days, I have only seen 3 (I think) questions on salt water. I`m sorry if you don`t agree with me. Splitting a small group like this will hurt more than solving any problem. If this group suddenly grows overnight to say 60 or more posts a day, then I would say split. John Thank you for your time. As I said before, I could be wrong. From: vaanderi@benji.Colorado.EDU (Eric Vaandering) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 14:12:06 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about thi In article <9406090511591.DLITE.jbanas@delphi.com>, John Banas wrote: >Please explain to me why splitting one group (rec) wont split the others? > >On Delphi, all the groups alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria, and sci.aquaria , are all >one big group. Anything posted in one group is posted into all the groups. >How does splitting one not affect the others? Then Delphi is doing something bizarre. They will have to adjust if the split happens. On USENET, these groups are as distinct from eachother as any other three groups on the internet. There are no ties except historical and the fact that lots of people crosspost. BTW, what Delphi is doing goes against the charter of sci.aquaria. That group is not for "HELP, my fish are dying" messages or for anything else that most of us write. Questions on water quality are probably within the scope of the group. > >I have heard other people who are on small net providers complain that their >service doesn`t carry all groups. Prejustice does happen. These small >providers can`t carry all groups. Being on Delphi, I don`t have that >problem, still Delphi doesn`t carry every single group. Some groups that >are small are left out. In the past 3 days, I have only seen 3 (I think) >questions on salt water. > >I`m sorry if you don`t agree with me. Splitting a small group like this will >hurt more than solving any problem. If this group suddenly grows overnight >to say 60 or more posts a day, then I would say split. The group is that big. From midnight to 8:00 am 54 messages arrived here. Eric -- Eric Vaandering Physics Department University of Colorado Boulder CO 80302 vaanderi@rintintin.colorado.edu ______________________________________________________________________________ Love is grand. Divorce is twenty grand. From: vaanderi@benji.Colorado.EDU (Eric Vaandering) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 14:20:40 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group In article <2t70te$84j@hp-col.col.hp.com>, Howard Rebel wrote: >I am NOT in favor of creating additional groups with the old ones in place. >I would not like to see sci.aquaria, alt.aquaria, rec.aquaria, rec.aquaria.marine, >and rec.aquaria.fresh. > >Iff we need a change lets go about finding out what it should be in a rational >fashion. > >The first thing would be to poll the users and find out how many vote: > > 1. Do not split. > 2. Split. > 3. Do not care. Been done. The evidence is that most people do support a split. > >It may be a good idea to ask the users who want a split why they want it. > >The second thing we need to find out is if we still need three groups to ensure >that everyone now reading the group can get it. Once we know how many people >would be left out by removing one or two of the current groups we can look >into options. I took this poll, actually. rec.aquaria reaches the most, and most everyone. sci. is next most popular, and alt. is last. However, we can not drop a group without losing some people. There are what I would call medium sized sites taht only get one of the groups. >I have used several news readers. The last two I have tried were called tass >and tin. Neither of these two readers seemed to know how to filter out cross-posted >articles. What PD new readers do? trn does, but only if you read the article in question. Sometimes people will post individiaully, but an idnetical message. Ticks me off. Eric -- Eric Vaandering Physics Department University of Colorado Boulder CO 80302 vaanderi@rintintin.colorado.edu ______________________________________________________________________________ Love is grand. Divorce is twenty grand. From: howardr@col.hp.com (Howard Rebel) Date: 9 Jun 1994 16:40:04 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group Eric Vaandering (vaanderi@benji.Colorado.EDU) wrote: : In article <2t70te$84j@hp-col.col.hp.com>, : Howard Rebel wrote: : >The second thing we need to find out is if we still need three groups to ensure : >that everyone now reading the group can get it. Once we know how many people : >would be left out by removing one or two of the current groups we can look : >into options. : I took this poll, actually. rec.aquaria reaches the most, and most : everyone. sci. is next most popular, and alt. is last. However, we can : not drop a group without losing some people. There are what I would call : medium sized sites taht only get one of the groups. I must have been out when you conducted it. Could you email it to me or repost the results. I would like to see real numbers. Did you ask why the people wanted the split. Reorging the group is a bit like getting a new haircut: not everyone will agree on what kind to get. : >I have used several news readers. The last two I have tried were called tass : >and tin. Neither of these two readers seemed to know how to filter out cross-posted : >articles. What PD new readers do? : trn does, but only if you read the article in question. Sometimes people : will post individiaully, but an idnetical message. Ticks me off. Does anyone know where it can be ftp'ed from? : -- : Eric Vaandering Physics Department University of Colorado : Boulder CO 80302 vaanderi@rintintin.colorado.edu : ______________________________________________________________________________ : Love is grand. Divorce is twenty grand. -- Howard Rebel howardr@col.hp.com FAX: 719-590-5701 From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 17:56:43 GMT Newsgroups: sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria,alt.quaria Subject: split Um, to recap we had a straw ballot and the consensus (inasmuch as you can have consensus on usenet) was to split rec.aquaria down the midle between freshwater and marine. There were equal amounts of "don't split it" and "make a dozen groups" which tended to cancel each other out, leaving the majority still, "split it into two" As to whether your provider will provider you with all groups, you're the one thats ying, and this is a market driven economy. This is a perceived problem, not an actual one. -- Richard J. Sexton Masonic order of the MANGO/Gryphon Gang North rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com From: howardr@col.hp.com (Howard Rebel) Date: 9 Jun 1994 21:16:58 GMT Newsgroups: sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria,alt.quaria Subject: Re: split Richard Sexton (rs@reptiles.org) wrote: : Um, to recap we had a straw ballot and the consensus (inasmuch as you : can have consensus on usenet) was to split rec.aquaria down the midle : between freshwater and marine. There were equal amounts of "don't split it" : and "make a dozen groups" which tended to cancel each other out, leaving : the majority still, "split it into two" I get the feeling that there may be somthing faulty about this logic. I too would like to see the groups reorged but only if it does not result in even more groups. OK, if the pole is valid lets do the split. I would feel better about it if I had seen the ballot and knew the numbers. I did not read notes for the first time in 4 years for a period of a month about a month ago. I am sorry I missed it. : As to whether your provider will provider you with all groups, you're : the one thats ying, Nice touch. : and this is a market driven economy. This is a : perceived problem, not an actual one. This sounds a lot like the tough bounce about news readers that can not weed out cross postings. My site provides me with all three groups. My concern is that a split if not done properly will do more harm then good. If the problem with sites that lack one of the three did not exist or we did not care about shuting out people I would suggest the following. Split rec.aquaria into req.aquaria.fresh and rec.aquaria.salt Use sci.aquaria for more scientific posts or better yet drop it. Drop alt.aquaria. But if there is a problem with loosing readers by doing this then what? How do you know it is only preceived? I would like to see us do what is best for the group. (where have we heard that line) Do we know what that is? : -- : Richard J. Sexton Masonic order of the MANGO/Gryphon Gang North : rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com -- Howard Rebel howardr@col.hp.com FAX: 719-590-5701sss From: vaanderi@benji.Colorado.EDU (Eric Vaandering) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 23:10:53 GMT Newsgroups: sci.aquaria,rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria Subject: Re: split In article <2t80sa$rlo@hp-col.col.hp.com>, Howard Rebel wrote: >it if I had seen the ballot and knew the numbers. I did not read notes >for the first time in 4 years for a period of a month about a month ago. >I am sorry I missed it. I was going to do this privately, but what the heck. I don't have results to any of these polls, but I believe that Dustin is archiving the whole discussion in the ftp archive. ftp.cco.caltech.edu? Maybe no FTP. Anyone who missed all of this, but is interested should check there. Eric PS: Has anyone else lost the one-line descriptions of rec. and alt? They are gone from my system. -- Eric Vaandering Physics Department University of Colorado Boulder CO 80302 vaanderi@rintintin.colorado.edu ______________________________________________________________________________ If it isn't broken, don't fix it. From: oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) Date: Thu, 9 Jun 1994 19:07:45 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about thi In article <9406090511591.DLITE.jbanas@delphi.com>, John Banas wrote: >Please explain to me why splitting one group (rec) wont split the others? Because only rec.aquaria will be split. sci.aquaria and alt.aquaria are separate and independent groups, in separate and independent hierarchies. >On Delphi, all the groups alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria, and sci.aquaria , are all >one big group. Anything posted in one group is posted into all the groups. >How does splitting one not affect the others? "delphi" is an INTERNET access provider. THey are neither representative of the rest of the NET, nor show good judgement in administering their USENET set up. They had taken it upon themselves to alias all aquaria groups together. By doing that they are effectively violating sci.aquaria's charter and undermining that group's aim of being the venue for more technical discussions of little interest to the general hobbyist. The split will present "delphi" administrators with a problem. I have very little sympathy for them. >providers can`t carry all groups. Being on Delphi, I don`t have that >problem, still Delphi doesn`t carry every single group. Some groups that >are small are left out. Of all the possible reasons to drop a newsgroup, low volume ranks as one of the least plausible. If there is no traffic in the group, then there is no expense in carrying it. Unless "delphi" is using a very obsolite version of USENET software, or is critically short of inodes on their news spool filesystem, there is no reason for them to junk low-volume groups. -- Oleg Kiselev at home ...use the header to find the path From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 18:21:38 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about thi In article <9406090511591.DLITE.jbanas@delphi.com>, John Banas wrote: >Please explain to me why splitting one group (rec) wont split the others? Sure. Right now there is rec.aquaria and sci.aquaria in the mail usenet hierarchy. Alt.aquaria exists in the alt hierarchy. When a vote for rec.aquaria.freshwater and rec.saltwater.marine goes through there will be rec.aquaria, rec.aquaria.freshwater, rec.aquaria.marine, sci.aquaria in the main hieracrhy and alt.aquaria in the alt hierarchy. They are all separate gruops. Articles that are crossposted to sci.aquaria, and read in sci.aquaria should not appear in rec.aquaria. If they do your software is broken or ancient. Replace it. The rest of the net is not going to accomidate you because you run the wrong softwre. >On Delphi, all the groups alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria, and sci.aquaria , are all >one big group. Anything posted in one group is posted into all the groups. >How does splitting one not affect the others? Delphi is all fucked up then, isn't it ? Broken. Doesn't work like the rest if usenet does. Send them a letter suggesting they fix it or you'll go get a netcom account. >I have heard other people who are on small net providers complain that their >service doesn`t carry all groups. Prejustice does happen. These small >providers can`t carry all groups. Being on Delphi, I don`t have that >problem, still Delphi doesn`t carry every single group. Some groups that >are small are left out. In the past 3 days, I have only seen 3 (I think) >questions on salt water. This is part of what will be known as the ``shakeout''. Dork outfits that don't supply what their customers want will find themselves lacking customers as there are many providers that happily supply you with any group you want. Leaving small groups out make the usual amount of delphi-sense, that is to say none at all. Small groups are almost free to a provider, it's the big ones (like the gif groups) that cost providers money. >I`m sorry if you don`t agree with me. Splitting a small group like this will >hurt more than solving any problem. If this group suddenly grows overnight >to say 60 or more posts a day, then I would say split. This group is almost 100 posts a day at this site. There may be more wrong with Delphi than we've suspected. The Usenet is not gong to change to accomidate Delphi. It is the other way around. -- Richard J. Sexton Masonic order of the MANGO/Gryphon Gang North rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com From: crysbis@u.washington.edu (Crystal) Date: 10 Jun 1994 15:40:54 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria Subject: AARRRRG!!! - was Split Just Do It. If everone is really worried about what would happen to rec.aquaria, the just create one new group - rec.aquaria.salt(water). This is not a life and death decision. If the experiment bombs, then we RE-CREATE the news groups as they once were. WHAT A CONCEPT. Is this too simplistic? Will I be flamed for this radical point of view? Again, leave sci. and alt. alone and just create one new group pertaining to salt. If I'm not mistaken, the discussion seems to have boiled down to salt vs fresh as alternatives for the split. -- crystal no plan, no quotes, just me From: rs@reptiles.org (Richard Sexton) Date: Fri, 10 Jun 1994 18:34:18 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group Howard Rebel wrote: > >The first thing would be to poll the users and find out how many vote: > > 1. Do not split. > 2. Split. > 3. Do not care. There was a discussion about splitting the group that stated about two months ago. There was a straw poll to se what groups everybody wanted and about a month ago I did another straw poll asking a more fundamental question: how many groups do you want it split into. The results were basically a Gaussian distribution with ``split into two groups'' clustered around the middle and equal numbers of diametricaly opposed camps that wanted no split or a split yielding a large number of groups. I can mail you the results if you want. Maybe somebody who saved the posting with the post-poll analysis could repost it; I didn't save it. This as good as consensus as you ever get on usenet, in my experience. -- Richard J. Sexton Masonic order of the MANGO/Gryphon Gang North rs@tuatara.reptiles.org richard@panchax.gryphon.com From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Laurence) Date: 10 Jun 1994 18:54:58 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group howardr@col.hp.com (Howard Rebel) writes: >I must have been out when you conducted it. Could you email it to me or >repost the results. I would like to see real numbers. Did you ask why >the people wanted the split. Reorging the group is a bit like getting >a new haircut: not everyone will agree on what kind to get. A nearly complete transcript of the discussion, including the results of two polls, are archived. Look in incoming/reorg at ftp.cco.caltech.edu . [What newsreaders filter out crossposts] >: trn does, but only if you read the article in question. Sometimes people >: will post individiaully, but an idnetical message. Ticks me off. nn does the same. Dustin From: howardr@col.hp.com (Howard Rebel) Date: 10 Jun 1994 20:54:55 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group Dustin Laurence (laurence@cco.caltech.edu) wrote: : howardr@col.hp.com (Howard Rebel) writes: : A nearly complete transcript of the discussion, including the results : of two polls, are archived. Look in incoming/reorg at : ftp.cco.caltech.edu . Thanks Dustin, I found it. I spent some time looking at the archive. It seems that most people want a split. Currently most messages appear in both alt and rec. If we split rec into fresh and salt what belongs in the alt group? While I was looking over the archive I detected an attuitude of 'if YOUR reader or YOUR site or YOUR news provided is not as good as mine then you are out of luck' George Booth pointed out that he had no problem reading the present groups on his HP9000/700 unix box. Neither do I. But I am not suggesting that everyone with a slower box needs to upgrade to what I have. I am in favor of a *.aquaria reorg that makes sense. : [What newsreaders filter out crossposts] : >: trn does, but only if you read the article in question. Sometimes people : >: will post individiaully, but an idnetical message. Ticks me off. : nn does the same. : Dustin -- Howard Rebel howardr@col.hp.com FAX: 719-590-5701 From: dwheeler@leland.Stanford.EDU (David Brockman Wheeler) Date: 10 Jun 1994 21:00:50 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about this group In article <2t70te$84j@hp-col.col.hp.com>, Howard Rebel wrote: >I am NOT in favor of creating additional groups with the old ones in place. >I would not like to see sci.aquaria, alt.aquaria, rec.aquaria, >rec.aquaria.marine, and rec.aquaria.fresh. I agree...rec.aquaria should be phased out once the two new groups are formed. As we have already estsablished, the alt and sci groups will be left unchanged. >The first thing would be to poll the users and find out how many vote: > > 1. Do not split. > 2. Split. > 3. Do not care. We already did this and the majority came down for #2. The next step will be the official vote thingy. >It may be a good idea to ask the users who want a split why they want it. I believe Dustin has archived about three weeks of extensive discussion on this thread. >-- >Howard Rebel howardr@col.hp.com >FAX: 719-590-5701 David Wheeler From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Laurence) Date: 10 Jun 1994 19:04:44 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria Subject: Re: AARRRRG!!! - was Split crysbis@u.washington.edu (Crystal) writes: >Just Do It. If everone is really worried about what would happen to >rec.aquaria, the just create one new group - rec.aquaria.salt(water). >This is not a life and death decision. If the experiment bombs, then we >RE-CREATE the news groups as they once were. WHAT A CONCEPT. Is this too >simplistic? Will I be flamed for this radical point of view? No, but you may be flamed for not knowing how the net doth work (I hope not). One might be able to take back a re-org, but I'm not aware of a case where it was successfully done. Technically, there is no problem at all, but I suspect that politically it would be quite a trick. Just a guess, though. Dustin From: jbanas@delphi.com (John Banas) Date: 10 Jun 1994 23:27:40 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about thi Excuse me. Their was a problem BUT it was fixed and explained. I now realize that the 3 groups aren`t linked. Problems do occur from time to time, you must be perfect. No need to act like an ass. Actually Delphi is one of the best providers I`ve seen. There`s no need to attack other providers. John - I`m imperfect person. Sorry. Have a nice evening. From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Laurence) Date: 11 Jun 1994 04:21:20 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria,alt.aquaria,sci.aquaria Subject: Pre-RFD The discussion seems to have gone on long enough to talk itself out (which is IMHO A Good Thing). Waiting much longer is probably counter- productive. We don't need to start all over again. If nobody else is going to do this, I am. The following is my thoughts on what should go into the RFD, based on the poll results, the discussion, and (inevitably) my own opinions. I think of this as the final opportunity for us to discuss this privately. Usually productive discussions become more focused as time goes on, so this is my attempt to focus in on loose ends (I hope) before the offical RFD and public discussion in news.groups . BTW, everyone deserves a big round of applause for a very cool and collected split discussion. Reorgs can get _very_ ugly, and I'm glad that this one hasn't been. Dustin ----------------- The Annotated Split :-) Nature of the split: There will be a split (surprise). Only rec.aquaria will be split. It will NOT be moved to the rec.pets.* hierarchy. alt.aquaria and sci.aquaria will be unchanged. These points were pretty overwhelmingly approved of during the discussion and straw-polling. Groups to be Created: rec.aquaria.freshwater rec.aquaria.marine The first straw poll made it clear that there is an overwhelming mandate for these two groups, and that .marine was more popular than .saltwater . I see little room for further debate on these groups to be productive. rec.aquaria.misc It is clear that a general discussion area is needed and desired. The two reasonable choices I see are rec.aquaria.misc and rec.aquaria. The advantages of rec.aquaria are that it is easy (do nothing), important given the sentiment for a not-over-large split, and keeps the beloved name "rec.aquaria." The disadvantages are that it is not at the hierarchy level of the other groups (not really an issue), and that even if our new groups are allowed to propagate normally, there will still be (as Patti says) foo.aquaria -> bar.aquaria aliases all over the place. The advantages of r.a.m are that it fits with the rest of the arrangement, and gives us a chance to try to get normal propagation for the aquaria groups. The disadvantage is that we have to hold a separate vote for removal of rec.aquaria afterwards, which might conceiveably fail, causing confusion we don't need. Overall, I personally prefer r.a.misc, mostly because it seems to offer a chance to do something about the screwball propagation of rec.aquaria . However, I don't really sense a strong consensus on this point yet. rec.aquaria.tech This group had a good showing in the first straw poll, and it is clear to me that most of the freshwater/marine independent discussion is over issues related to lighting, filtration, diy projects, etc. In short, technical questions. This group provides a common forum for technical discussions independent of the kind of aquarium. I would like to see the cross- fertilization continue. That is three or four new groups, depending on whether we create rec.aquaria misc or keep rec.aquaria as the non-specific discussion group. Given that there was a strong sentiment for a small split, even though there was no agreement on what "small" meant, I suggest at this point that these are the only groups that should appear in the RFD. I omit the following groups from the suggested RFD, but perhaps there could productively be more discussion on them: rec.aquaria.plants A number of people wanted a plant group immediately. I sympathize, but to do this we need to know (1) should it really be rec.aquaria.plants, or should it be rec.aquaria.freshwater.plants? and (2) is there enough support, given the apparent preference for a small split, to create this group now? If both can be answered appropriately, perhaps I should add the group to the RFD. Otherwise, plant discussion will probably belong in rec.aquaria.freshwater, that being the umbrella group for freshwater tanks (amazingly enough). I personally think that plants are a major topic well deserving of a group, but perhaps now is not the time. (In six months when people complain that XX% of the freshwater posts are plant posts, things might be different. ) rec.aquaria.info Did reasonably well (35+% yes), but has no clear charter. If it is for general info, it appears to me to partially overlap with (at least) r.a.misc (or r.a) and rec.aquaria.tech. If instead its primary purpose is newbie info, will significant numbers of newbies use it instead of another group, and will non-newbies read it and take the time to answer questions? As an aside, the miserable showing of .help and .new suggests that this group is only viable as a general info group. Good answers to these problems might make it a viable candidate, but I am somewhat doubtful that good answers will appear. And given that I at least don't see from the name what it is for, I'm sure that newcomers won't have a clue. The following groups were not included in the suggested RFD and are not recommended for further discussion. Their poll results were very low when they appeared on the ballot at all (though .brackish's showing was not too bad), and I think they are dead on arrival. The previous groups are probably more worthy of consideration if the size of the split is to be expanded. rec.aquaria.help, rec.aquaria.new These are really alternate names for rec.aquaria.info which got little support. In addition, their other problems are at least as great as the .info group. Given their rec.aquaria.brackish Asthetically satisfying to namespace theorists who want to complete the fresh-brackish-marine triad :-), but only got <25% approval. I suggest that rec.aquaria.freshwater.killies or rec.aquaria.killies There is a large mailing list for killies, and I think that they can have a group if they stand up and make their desires heard, but given that support for this group has been small I think that those desires are to remain a mailing list. rec.aquaria.marine.reef or rec.aquaria.reef Of course I'd certainly read such a group, but I saw little discussion of making a separate reef group. It seems that the net.sentiment is that reef discussion can more profitably live in rec.aquaria.marine, and at present I agree. From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Laurence) Date: 11 Jun 1994 20:11:07 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria Subject: .market group (was: Re: Need Marine Fish???) oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) writes: >... and this is exactly why we should have a rec.aquaria.market (or the >like) newsgroup. In the long run, you are exactly right, and I think it will be created eventually. In the short run, since the temper seems to be for a small split, I don't know whether it is a good idea to try to create it now. I think that the small-split sentiment is shortsighted, but that's the price of consensus. Just once, though, it would be nice to create these groups before they become a necessity rather than after they have been a necessity for years. Dustin From: laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Laurence) Date: 11 Jun 1994 20:33:15 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT (was : Some thoughts about thi ) christyluv@aol.com (ChristyLuv) writes: >In article <9406080702594.DLITE.jbanas@delphi.com>, jbanas@delphi.com >(John Banas) writes: >So many posts are about >splitting that many people are getting mad. Your spending all the >time >reading split posts and no time learning. >Ditto. Guess what? A new technological invention allows you to handle this all by your self: the subject line! You know what those little Subject: line headers are for? They aren't just to make it easy to archive them for later use--YOU CAN USE THEM RIGHT NOW! Just hit 'n' when you see a subject like split discussions you don't want to read (for brain-dead newsreaders) or don't select messages with that subject (for newsreaders which provide a menu of subject lines). This will allow you to read the messages you want to read without trying to stop other people from having their own discussions. Even better, learn to use a killfile. Kill all messages with "split" in the subject line. >This is starting to reek of political bullshit - and it's boring. I suppose we occasionally have to explain to complete newbies just what a political place usenet is. Nothing you or I say or do is ever going to change that. People are political, the net is made up of people, and so the net is political. Very little is actually at stake, which make the politics even worse. Newsgroup creation or reorganization is particularly political. This group is usually insulated from it, but it is the exception. And when we decided to split (I guess I can say that that has been pretty well decided) we opened ourselves up to a large number of political considerations that you apparently don't understand. Richard gave us a bit of history quite a while ago on why the split of this group is far more politicized than the split of the average usenet group. If you weren't here then or couldn't be bothered to pay attention, virtually all of the discussion is archived at ftp.cco.caltech.edu in pub/aquaria/incoming/reorg . I suggest you read it so you have the background that most of the rest of us already do. >I picked up this newsgroup because I'm new to aquaria as well as the >net. I would appreciate reading about "The aquarium, and related, as >a hobby." rather than personalities and political masturbation. Sorry we don't live up to your expectations. Usnet is rarely exactly what you want it too be. Much like the world in that respect, no? This group was not created to discuss only what you or I want to discuss, but to provide a place for public discussion on many aquarium-related topics. Many of the people who have been contributing heavily to the split threads are among the most long-time readers, and the thread was started by the guy who created these groups in the first place. If anyone has an idea what this group is for, it is them. If you don't like it, then don't read the group or learn to live with the tension. As a final note, if you hate politics then you should learn to like the discussion here. Because if we just went off half-cocked to news.groups and tried to split, you apparently have absolutely no idea just how much politics we'd get into. And the worse it got, the more aquaria non-readers would start posting here about the split. In the long run, what we have been doing is what must be done to minimize the overall level of senseless politics discussed here. Few groups seem to have the maturity to do it right, but apparently the aquaria groups do. You are going to benefit from the reduced level of political flames, whether you realize it or not. Dustin From: christyluv@aol.com (ChristyLuv) Date: 11 Jun 1994 10:58:01 -0400 Newsgroups: alt.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT, was : Some thoughts about thi In article <9406080702594.DLITE.jbanas@delphi.com>, jbanas@delphi.com (John Banas) writes: So many posts are about splitting that many people are getting mad. Your spending all the time reading split posts and no time learning. Ditto. This is starting to reek of political bullshit - and it's boring. I picked up this newsgroup because I'm new to aquaria as well as the net. I would appreciate reading about "The aquarium, and related, as a hobby." rather than personalities and political masturbation. Those are my two cents. Jorge Gonzalez From: saulius@isy.liu.se (Saulius Vilunas) Date: 11 Jun 1994 20:51:33 GMT Newsgroups: rec.aquaria Subject: Re: .market group (was: Re: Need Marine Fish?? In article i19@gap.cco.caltech.edu, laurence@cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Laurence) writes: >oleg@netcom.com (Oleg Kiselev) writes: > >>... and this is exactly why we should have a rec.aquaria.market (or the >>like) newsgroup. > >In the long run, you are exactly right, and I think it will be created >eventually. In the short run, since the temper seems to be for a >small split, I don't know whether it is a good idea to try to create >it now. > >I think that the small-split sentiment is shortsighted, but that's the >price of consensus. Just once, though, it would be nice to create >these groups before they become a necessity rather than after they >have been a necessity for years. > >Dustin > If I understood correctly what has been mentioned several times before it is much easier to create a new group than to delete one. May be such a small split has some sense from this point of view. It will let everybody to test how much better it is to have several groups instead of one. And I think that adding a new group later when the need for that will be evident will be easier from a psycological point of view. I believe that to accept an idea there will be just another group in the same level of hierarchy is easier than to split an existing group into several. And it will be not the first time to most of the readers of these groups then. The first time is always somehow difficult and much more exiting ... Saulius From: jbanas@delphi.com (John Banas) Date: 11 Jun 1994 22:19:03 GMT Newsgroups: alt.aquaria Subject: Re: SPLIT (was : Some thoughts about thi Dustin: I only wrote part of that article that you are basing your opinion on. I only commented on the the tiredness of the split articles. And I have to mention that I`m sorry that I even wrote it in the first place. I do know what the subject headings are for, I`m not stupid, I use an off-line reader and the download time is what I was basing my opinion on. 20 hours go by quick enough. The reeking bullshit was not my comment. If you don`t agree, that`s fine, Living in America lets us disagree. I say lets get on with the aquarium related questions and stop with the splitting comments. This will be my last splitting post. John Have a nice evening.