The return of net.bizarre.
John H. Johnson
Good afternoon, gentlefolk. I am here to speak to you today about
a very popular un-group: net.bizarre.
As you all know, this group was created on accident by our friends
at Perkin-Elmer. As such, it was rightfully removed from the net because
it did not meet the criteria for becoming a new group. However, in its
short lifetime this group tapped a well-spring of enthusiasm unequalled
in recent times. Within its first hours of existence there were ^several^
original, unrelated postings - unheard of for a new group. And the support
among the net populace has been staggering.
Sensing that there was a great deal of support on the net for this
group, I posted articles to net.bizarre and net.jokes asking those who had an
opinion on the groups existence to mail me thier thoughts. Despite the fact
that few sites still carry net.bizarre, and net.jokes was the *only* other
group to which I posted the request, and that it was a weekend, in the short
turnaround time of four days I have received over _65_ *very* positive replies.
The above restrictions, including time, suggest that this is just the tip of
the iceburg. In that same time period I have received a few other letters
requesting more information, but only one dissenting vote, and that one was
rather humorous.
The criteria for creating a new group(or reestablishing one) call
for a wide base of support. My overstuffed mail box establishes that we have
met the first criterion (If there are any doubters, I would be happy to forward
a list of pathnames, or the complete file of comments if so desired {:-) ).
A second requirement is discussion. Well, there has already been discussion
here in net.news.group from root@bu-cs, myself, and others; and I am *sure*
there will be plenty of discussion after this posting. The remaining criterion
calls in a somewhat vague way for a show of the ^need^ for the new group.
Given unclear parameters, this is the hardest, or easiest to establish,
depending upon your viewpoint. I have several responses to this last
criterion, but since this article is getting long, I will discuss these in
an article to follow. Suffice it to say here that many people perceive a
need, or gap, that this group fills. *Please* read the article on reasons.
Flames are welcome, but none are justified. This is being handled in
the best of net.etiquette. I acknowledge and share the concern over creating
another top group, but this group by its nature cannot be a sub-group of
anything, and it certainly has more interest in it then several current top
groups. There should be room for one more (especially if spaf@gatech removes
a few groups that are just lying about). If at some point in the future
net.bizarre degenerates to no traffic, I would be happy to remove it myself,
but right now it has copious amounts of support. If it will ease a few minds
to create it as an experimental group(as one person suggested), so be it. I
do not believe it will bother the posters or readers to know they are part of
a vast, enlightening experiment [{:-)]. I *do* know it would bother very many
people ^greatly^ if they did not get the chance.
I have said *more* than enough (Whew, isn't he #long# winded!) in
my attempt to sum up and avert unecessary yes/no posting, so I will be on
my way. Thank you for your time, and an open ear.....
0 0 (Crises?.... What Crises?)
^
\_/ John
Phoenix@ucbtopaz ucbvax!ucbtopaz!phoenix
G A Moffett
it. Hopefully other interested sites will follow suit.
"Vox populi, vox Dei" ("The voice of the People is the voice of God")
--
Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,cbosgd,hplabs}!amdahl!gam
Gene Spafford
creating a new newgroup were not followed. For the information
of our readers, the procedure is:
1) Propose a new group in "net.news.group" and related, existing groups
2) Poll the readership for comments
3) Establish that there is/would be sufficient traffic
4) Based on responses, create the group.
HOWEVER.....
Net.bizarre was created for a while. In fact, the steps above were
followed, in reverse order, and seem to have established that the
group would field sufficient traffic (better than 65 responses from
just part of the network is incredible). So, for the time being, let's
see if net.bizarre supports traffic of its own (not cross posted
elsewhere) and justifies its existance. That is, I have just
"offically" re-created the group and added it to the active list.
Somehow, I supposed this ass-backwards way of approaching it is
appropriate for the group.
The listing in the active file for this group is:
net.bizarre Strange postings and reports of odd occurances.
Anybody got suggestions for a better description?
--
Gene "3 months and holding" Spafford
The Clouds Project, School of ICS, Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332
CSNet: Spaf @ GATech ARPA: Spaf%GATech.CSNet @ CSNet-Relay.ARPA
uucp: ...!{akgua,allegra,hplabs,ihnp4,linus,seismo,ulysses}!gatech!spaf
Dan Lorenzini
>
>The listing in the active file for this group is:
>net.bizarre Strange postings and reports of odd occurances.
>
>Anybody got suggestions for a better description?
How about
net.bizarre Strange postings and reports of odd occurences.
(Sorry, Gene)
Todd Cooper
to ask about a bizarre occurence.
Bryan Gumbal when on the David Letterman show painted Letterman's legs
with bright orange paint.
Now that's very bizarre!
--
---------------------------
Todd Cooper
UUCP: ...!harvard!bu-cs!todd
ARPA: todd%bu-cs...@csnet-relay.arpa
CSNET: todd@bu-cs
BITNET: stdttc@bostonu
USNail: 29 Gordon Street #201, Brighton, MA 02135
Doug Gwyn <gwyn>
How about
net.bizarre Strange postings and reports of odd occurrences.
Robert Elz
> Net.bizarre should never have been created. The proper procedure for
> creating a new newgroup were not followed. For the information
> of our readers, the procedure is:
> 1) Propose a new group in "net.news.group" and related, existing groups
> 2) Poll the readership for comments
> 3) Establish that there is/would be sufficient traffic
> 4) Based on responses, create the group.
I would like to suggest that those steps should normally be
followed in the order
3 1 2 4
That is, first get the traffic. No matter how interesting or useful
articles on some topic might be, there is no point making a new group
if no-one has anything to say about it.
The best way to get a new subject of discussion going is probably to
start it - pick the "most appropriate" group, and say something. If
there are other "possibly appropriate" groups, you could post a pointer
article to them, indicate that a new, and possibly interseting theme of
discussion is starting. From that, one of several things might happen
a) no-one answers, or after a very short interval
all discussion on the topic dies. In this case, all that
anyone wants to say has probably been said, no new group was
needed.
b) there is a small amount of traffic. In this case,
just keeping the discussion in the original group is
appropriate.
c) discussion proliferates, so much that the people who used
to use the group that you chose start complaining
that their group has been taken over. This is where you
propose a new group, get support, etc. This won't be hard
to do, or take very long. You already have the support of
all the people interested in your new topic, plus all the
people reading the group it is in who want you to go away.
d) discussion proliferates, so much so that the old traffic
in the group vanishes completely. In this case you
have a "new group" (with an old name) ready made. The old
uses of the group can't have been very active, or you would
never have been able to take over. The group may not have
the "very best" name possible (but which of them do now?).
Another way to establish traffic might be to start with a mailing
list, if it gets big enough to be better handled as a newsgroup,
then you at least know that it is going to be used.
Its worth remembering that having a group with a name that suggests a
topic that you would like to read about doesn't get you anything to
read - you need to find people willing to write about the subject
first. The various "vlsi" groups (present, and removed) demonstrate
that, either the vlsi people are too busy doing fascinating work to
have time to tell anyone about it, or are simply not doing anything
worth talking about (take your pick), but whichever it is, I've
certainly never seen anything useful in those groups.
Proposing a group before establishing that there will indeed be some
traffic to fill it only leads to lots of people who want to get the
(perhaps non existant) information sending lots of messages to
net.news.group supporting its existance. Someone then gets tired of
all this, and creates the group to make the "yes create it" messages go
away, and then there is this empty group, just sitting there. The only
way to discover that there will be enough traffic, is to start a
discussion somewhere.
Robert Elz ucbvax!kre
ps: this article is not related to the net.bizarre discussion
that spaf's message was mostly about.
Jim Crandell
> with bright orange paint.
On David Letterman, NOTHING is bizarre.
Bryan Gumball? Is he out of his tree?
--
Jim Crandell, C. S. Dept., The University of Texas at Austin
{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!crandell