Shane wrote:
>
>I lobbed the idea of a newsgroup for minis into rec.autos a few weeks ago and
>received quite a good response. Not quite the 100 or so necessary to get it
>off the ground, but good nevertheless. Now, I would like your (yes you lot!)
>comments on the idea, and whether you would go for one specifically for
>British cars?
>
>What say you, yay or nay?
If the question is:
Should we shut down the british-cars mailing list and
start up a british-cars news group,
the answer is a definite Nay.
On the other hand, if you are asking our opinion of whether you should
start an independent newsgroup, I certainly have no objections to that.
-
This must be the third rev on this question and each time the answer
has been the same: Nay.
I can think of two positive reasons for starting a Newsgroup: 1) it
would relieve Ovr Fovnder and the Keeper of the Flickering Flame from
having to babysit a global mailing list and 2) the coverage would be
much more widespread.
Some of the negatives though are truly hideous. In newsgroups you
would have flame wars, kids spouting off about how their brother's
5-liter IROC Camaro can blow away any of those wimpy british cars
followed by some lost moron's question on how to check the oil in a
Dodge Voyager and a much higher volume that consist mainly of infinite
subject followups that end up having nothing to do with british cars.
We have none of these now. What we have is a pleasent club atmosphere
that stretches world-wide, doesn't flame and enjoys an extremely high
signal-to-noise ratio.
Really, what more could a newsgroup have to offer than what we
currently have?
The clubbiness and security of a mailing list is nice too. The fact
that one must make at least a minimal effort to get onto this mailing
list in itself serves as a filter in keeping the riffraff out. You
know who your postings are going out to. And if someone ever has the
bad manners to get unbearably obnoxious, they can simply be removed
from the mailing list. You can't do that with a newsgroup.
Also, while anyone can send and receive mail, a number of sites only
offer USENET in a read-only mode.
--
Lawrence Buja
southern@ncar.ucar.edu
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