The US Hierarchy (Was: Re: PROPOSAL for alt.guitar.uk)
Joel Furr
Snakes of Medusa <mat...@mantis.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <s049952...@let.rug.nl>, R. Dijkhuis <s049...@let.rug.nl> wrote:
>>why not propose a newsgroup under the uk.* hierarchy? That's what those
>>national hierarchies are for.
>
>That never stops the fucking Americans.
This is going to come as a bad shock, Mathew, but...
"alt" IS the American hierarchy. It was created here to discuss subjects
that are illegal under American law such as drugs and sex (ObFact: sex in
a position other than the missionary position or for purposes other than
procreation is still illegal in many states). The hierarchy gets carried
around the world, true, but it's the American hierarchy nonetheless.
Most of the in-joke groups on alt. are about American tv shows and
American bands and American personalities.
You all have your national hierarchies, and we have alt. It's the USA
hierarchy, and you might as well get used to it.
Bob Tinsley
jkf...@snarf.eecs.umich.edu (Joel Furr) writes:
>You all have your national hierarchies, and we have alt. It's the USA
>hierarchy, and you might as well get used to it.
And here was me thinking that that was what us.* was.
Regards,
--
-- Bob Tinsley (ma...@csv.warwick.ac.uk) Paging Jeff Smith...
Found in sci.math: `This Internet business might be O.K. after all,
saves having to deal with a librarian...'
Joel Furr
Bob Tinsley <ma...@csv.warwick.ac.uk> wrote:
>In article <2jgbur$c...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>,
> jkf...@snarf.eecs.umich.edu (Joel Furr) writes:
>>You all have your national hierarchies, and we have alt. It's the USA
>>hierarchy, and you might as well get used to it.
>
>And here was me thinking that that was what us.* was.
Might have been a good idea to have a us. hierarchy, but unfortunately,
alt. was created first and the subsequent newgrouping of us.* has
achieved precisely squat -- not one us. group I looked at a few minutes
ago has any traffic in it at all.
Michael Grubb
Joel Furr <jkf...@snarf.eecs.umich.edu> wrote:
>Might have been a good idea to have a us. hierarchy, but unfortunately,
>alt. was created first and the subsequent newgrouping of us.* has
>achieved precisely squat -- not one us. group I looked at a few minutes
>ago has any traffic in it at all.
This is probably related to the fact that UUNET does not have any us.*
groups in their active file. If someone wants to start a us.* (or _much_
better: usa.*) regional hierarchy, then that someone needs to do a lot of
work to get key sites to carry it.
"alt.*", however, is _not_ a regional hierarchy. It is a worldwide hierarchy
that exists as an alternative to the 7 "mainstream" Usenet hierarchies.
I'm not sure there's much that is exclusively USA-specific that needs to
go in a "us.*" or "usa.*" hierarchy anyway. Take "alt.tv.nypd-blue" as
an example -- it's already being shown in other countries. If someone had
put it in "us.tv.nypd-blue", that would have been a mistake.
It has been suggested in various corners that a good use for a "usa.*"
hierarchy might be to reorganize the existing regional hierarchies in the
USA, as in "usa.ca.ba.foo" or "usa.nc.triangle.foo" or "usa.tx.austin.foo".
As much of a good idea as this might be (codifying the relationships between
regional hierarchies would enable smarter newsreader agents), changing
everything around in this way makes my brain hurt.
--
Michael Grubb <ne...@news.duke.edu> "Kenneth, what's the frequency?"
Tim Pierce
Joel Furr <jkf...@snarf.eecs.umich.edu> wrote:
>You all have your national hierarchies, and we have alt. It's the USA
>hierarchy, and you might as well get used to it.
Okay, Joel, I give up. Whose alter ego *are* you? Ted Kaldis?
--
____ Tim Pierce / "Is that a UNIX book? ... Cool!"
\ / twpi...@unix.amherst.edu /
\/ (BITnet: TWPIERCE@AMHERST) / -- Garth, WAYNE'S WORLD 2
Arthur Chance
> Snakes of Medusa <mat...@mantis.co.uk> wrote:
> >In article <s049952...@let.rug.nl>, R. Dijkhuis <s049...@let.rug.nl> wrote:
> >>why not propose a newsgroup under the uk.* hierarchy? That's what those
> >>national hierarchies are for.
> >That never stops the fucking Americans.
> This is going to come as a bad shock, Mathew, but...
No it won't. Mathew has a full set of working clues.
> "alt" IS the American hierarchy. It was created here to discuss subjects
> that are illegal under American law such as drugs and sex (ObFact: sex in
> a position other than the missionary position or for purposes other than
> procreation is still illegal in many states). The hierarchy gets carried
> around the world, true, but it's the American hierarchy nonetheless.
I seem to remember Brian Reid remarking not long ago that alt was created
to a) carry the controversial groups (primarily alt.sex & alt.drugs) that
certain backbone sites refused to take and b) as a hierarchy where the
formality of Usenet didn't apply. Nothing about it being just for USians
(I believe there were quite a few Canadian sites on the net at that point).
By your logic, Usenet was created to discuss subjects that are legal
under US law, so all of Usenet belongs to the US. This is a viewpoint
normally expressed only by those who believe that the net is entirely
funded by US tax money and all non US people are Godless Commie Creeps
and express such beliefs with poor literacy. (I'm not including you in
this group, Joel, in case this is misinterpreted as ad hominem.)
(ObBafflement: I don't understand a country where requiring 5 days to check
out you're not an escaped psychotic before selling you a gun is regarded as
a massive infringment of your liberty, but legislation telling you what
position to fuck in fails to cause massive marches on state legislatures.
I can't believe you all prefer shooting to sex, the country would be
deserted. :-)
In fact, at various other times when people have proposed
alt.something.us.local and non-us people have said put it in us.* it has
been admitted that a us.* hierarchy does/did exist, but wasn't propagated
well. This indicates that there was the intention of having a us hierarchy
and its lack of propagation is a US problem.
> Most of the in-joke groups on alt. are about American tv shows and
> American bands and American personalities.
Given that ~60% of the net posters are North American and the percentage was
higher historically, that's not so surprising. If the entire world were
connected equally you'd count for 5%. If that day were to ever arrive the
primary claimant for alt would be China by this argument. However, I don't
believe you can actually claim that most of alt other than the trash
groups are anything but supranational. The nationality of the subject of
discussion is often totally or largely irrelevant. (Unless you want to
claim alt.buddha.short.fat.guy is actually Indian, alt.music.jewish
is Israeli and alt.fan.lemurs is Madagascan.)
(I'm also worried by your use of `in-joke' here. Most in-joke groups
are what get alt the reputation of being a crawling horror. If you'd
said _many_ _reasonable_ (supply your own definition for this, provided
it doesn't involve exploding barneys or lampreys) groups are about US
tv shows and bands, I'd agree. Given that the music and tv industries
are tending to become supranational, that's irrelevant. It appears we
have NYPD Blue showing on UK tv before some places over there have it.)
> You all have your national hierarchies, and we have alt. It's the USA
> hierarchy, and you might as well get used to it.
alt.education.bangkok.*??? Is that Bangkok, TX or Bangkok, OH? :-)
Also check out alt.mornington.cresent which is so British you probably
won't have a clue.
A better phrasing would be: many US people think that alt is us.* and
many non-US people get annoyed about that and what is perceived as
US arrogance. As net access grows in Europe and the Pacific Rim, so there
will be more people getting annoyed. Eventually, there will be stupid
newgroup/rmgroup wars (the "GIFs at 11" scenario :-) or us.* will get
set up properly (or things will have changed so much this is all irrelevant).
--
Contains no user maintainable parts.
Joel Furr
Tim Pierce <twpi...@unix.amherst.edu> wrote:
>In article <2jgbur$c...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>,
>Joel Furr <jkf...@snarf.eecs.umich.edu> wrote:
>>You all have your national hierarchies, and we have alt. It's the USA
>>hierarchy, and you might as well get used to it.
>
>Okay, Joel, I give up. Whose alter ego *are* you? Ted Kaldis?
Who?
Tim, my point is simply that alt has always served as the default place
to put US-specific groups, and it continues to fill that purpose, while
the us. hierarchy sits empty.
I think we should simply wake up and admit it.
Dick Jackson
>In article <2jgbur$c...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>,
> jkf...@snarf.eecs.umich.edu (Joel Furr) writes:
>>You all have your national hierarchies, and we have alt. It's the USA
>>hierarchy, and you might as well get used to it.
>
>And here was me thinking that that was what us.* was.
I live in the U.S. and some of my best friends are Americans but almost
all of them share a trait that I find most irritating. If I am
conversing with chap A, chap B will come along and without waiting
or even apologising will immediately say what he wants to say (on some
new subject). This is no doubt because all Americans are spoilt as kids,
in my experience parents always stop adult conversations to listen
to little Johnny, instead of whacking the blighter about the ears and
sending him on his way as good English parents would do.
Its the same on the net of course.
Let me assure everyone that in no way am I trying to start another
us vs. them controversy. Its just a simple observation about the way
things are.
Dick J
Andrea Malone
I live in the U.S. and some of my best friends are Americans but almost
all of them share a trait that I find most irritating. If I am
conversing with chap A, chap B will come along and without waiting
or even apologising will immediately say what he wants to say (on some
new subject). This is no doubt because all Americans are spoilt as kids,
in my experience parents always stop adult conversations to listen
to little Johnny, instead of whacking the blighter about the ears and
sending him on his way as good English parents would do.
Dick J
In _my_ experience, parents rarely stop to pay attention to their
kids until the kids are whining or screaming or crying as loud as
they can. Then they get scolded, hit, or otherwised punished for
interrupting. This doesn't solve the problem, because the kid _did_
finally get the parent's attention, presumably reinforcing the
behavior.
--
--
Andrea Malone | Technical Documentation | Mark V Systems
and...@markv.com | Technical Support | (818) 995-7671
Paul Roberts
>all of them share a trait that I find most irritating. If I am
>conversing with chap A, chap B will come along and without waiting
>or even apologising will immediately say what he wants to say (on some
>new subject). This is no doubt because all Americans are spoilt as kids,
>in my experience parents always stop adult conversations to listen
>to little Johnny, instead of whacking the blighter about the ears and
>sending him on his way as good English parents would do.
"They are a very decent generous lot of people out here and they don't
expect you to listen. Always remember that, dear boy. It's the secret
of social ease in this country. They talk entirely for their own
pleasure. Nothing they say is designed to be heard."
from "The Loved One" by Evelyn Waugh.
:
Tim Pierce
Arthur Chance <art...@Smallworld.co.uk> wrote:
>(ObBafflement: I don't understand a country where requiring 5 days to check
>out you're not an escaped psychotic before selling you a gun is regarded as
>a massive infringment of your liberty, but legislation telling you what
>position to fuck in fails to cause massive marches on state legislatures.
Well, it does. However, most of *those* laws have been on the books
since the dawn of time, so people's objections to them take the
slightly more ordinary route of introducing Congressional bills to
repeal them. Brand-new sexual fascism laws and amendments, on the
other hand, get hung out to dry.
>In fact, at various other times when people have proposed
>alt.something.us.local and non-us people have said put it in us.* it has
>been admitted that a us.* hierarchy does/did exist, but wasn't propagated
>well. This indicates that there was the intention of having a us hierarchy
>and its lack of propagation is a US problem.
The preponderance of Furrites in the U.S. doesn't do much to help it,
either. The more we act to treat alt.* as us.*, the more it will
become the truth. Part of me is inclined to side with Mathew and say
go ahead and create alt.guitar.uk, but it's not going to wake up
anyone on this side of the pond any time soon. Rather, it'd more
likely be used as justification for alt.north.carolina and other
bizarre ideas.
Jim Jewett
In article <2jgis5$9...@hydrogen.smallworld.co.uk>,
Arthur Chance <art...@Smallworld.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <2jgbur$c...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>,
>jkf...@snarf.eecs.umich.edu (Joel Furr) writes:
>(ObBafflement: I don't understand a country where requiring 5 days to check
>out you're not an escaped psychotic before selling you a gun is regarded as
>a massive infringment of your liberty, but legislation telling you what
>position to fuck in fails to cause massive marches on state legislatures.
>I can't believe you all prefer shooting to sex, the country would be
>deserted. :-)
It took me a while too, but it makes sense.
The Conservatives don't like sex, but love guns and laws.
The Liberals (American definition) love sex, but not guns,
and enjoy bragging about how they flaunt stupid laws.
So the compromise is to allow both sex and guns, but to make
the sex technically illegal, and to only enforce those laws when
a politician needs exposure.
(and he quotes:)
>In article <2jgbur$c...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>,
>jkf...@snarf.eecs.umich.edu (Joel Furr) writes:
>> You all have your national hierarchies, and we have alt. It's the USA
>> hierarchy, and you might as well get used to it.
>Also check out alt.mornington.cresent which is so British you probably
>won't have a clue.
Err... I confess that I don't remember reading the newgroup, but
I had thought it was newgrouped after a thread (alt.folklore.urban?
rec.games.abstract?) about it made it seem horrendously funny
-- even to the Americans reading the original group.
>Eventually, there will be stupid newgroup/rmgroup wars
ahh. Good thing that has never happened yet.
-jJ _____
|\ /|
Take only memories. ji...@eecs.umich.edu | 0 |
Leave not even footprints. jew...@pitt.edu |/_\|
C. D. Tavares
> In article <2jgis5$9...@hydrogen.smallworld.co.uk>,
> Arthur Chance <art...@Smallworld.co.uk> wrote:
> >(ObBafflement: I don't understand a country where requiring 5 days to check
> >out you're not an escaped psychotic before selling you a gun is regarded as
> >a massive infringment of your liberty, but legislation telling you what
> >position to fuck in fails to cause massive marches on state legislatures.
That's because you have it wrong.
The Brady Act requires five days to FAIL to check out whether or not you're
an escaped psychotic before selling you a gun.
o The background check is suggested -- not required. Most of our
(overloaded) police departments simply won't do any.
o The check -- even if done -- doesn't include psychiatric data.
Happier now? Feel so much safer, I hope?
[Note that requiring you to wait 24 hours to "think about it" before
obtaining an abortion is generally regarded as a "massive infringement
of your liberty" by many of the same people who see no problem with the
five-day wait for a firearm purchase just for the sake of making you wait.]
Followups set.
--
c...@rocket.sw.stratus.com --If you believe that I speak for my company,
OR c...@vos.stratus.com write today for my special Investors' Packet...
Larry W. Virden
only been on the net for about 10 yrs, that a significant number of newsgroups
are proposed by folks who are currently residing in the US of A. The discussions
on a majority of the TV shows , bands and commercial packages discussed are
generally held initially by folks who are currently residing in the US of A -
many of whom are attending some form of educational institution or whom are
employed here. In general, after the item being discussed has been around
a bit, folks from other countries pipe in with questions (of the sort - when
will that book be published here, or that show start broadcasting here,
or that band tour here) and the group becomes international in participation.
I wonder how many of the at least 1305 alt groups fall into this
category. And of the ones which do not, how many of them were created as
a 'joke' and have never had much of any participation.
--
:s Great net resources sought...
:s Larry W. Virden INET: lvi...@cas.org
:s Personal: 674 Falls Place, Reynoldsburg, OH 43068-1614
The task of an educator should be to irrigate the desert not clear the forest.
Snakes of Medusa
Tim Pierce <twpi...@unix.amherst.edu> wrote:
>either. The more we act to treat alt.* as us.*, the more it will
>become the truth.
Actually, my favourite plan now is to launch the abc.* hierarchy as
discussed some months ago, as the "alt for the world" hierarchy. Then
leave alt.* as the us regional hierarchy. You're welcome to it, guys.
For those who missed it, the idea of abc.* was to have newgroup ideas
informally voted on by anyone who is the news admin at a Usenet site.
Simple majority in favour to get the group, group name is whatever
gets the most nods of approval.
The plan is that it'd be like altnet, but you'd not get all the junk
groups. Someone would send out regular checkgroups containing the
canonical list of abc.* groups. Hopefully we wouldn't then end up
with a zillion unneccessary joke groups, pro-football groups,
groups.not.in.hierarchical.format, and so on. Yet at the same time,
there'd be none of the stifling formalism of mainstream Usenet voting,
and nobody would have overall control.
Anyone who's interested and thinks it's a good idea, mail me. I'm
about ready to try it.
mathew
--
I have a flawless philosophical and scientific model of reality.
Unfortunately, it's actual size. We must never be dogmatic. Anyone
who says otherwise is wrong. Will betray country for food. Annoy the
censors -- mention Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka in your .signature.
Kari Sutela
>Tim, my point is simply that alt has always served as the default place
>to put US-specific groups, and it continues to fill that purpose, while
>the us. hierarchy sits empty.
>I think we should simply wake up and admit it.
I think you should wake up do something to get the us. hierarchy going.
--
"A Severally clueless asshole"
MAC
Joel Furr <jkf...@snarf.eecs.umich.edu> wrote:
>[deleted]
>Tim, my point is simply that alt has always served as the default place
>to put US-specific groups, and it continues to fill that purpose, while
>the us. hierarchy sits empty.
>
>I think we should simply wake up and admit it.
Joel, I think you have hit the nail on the head. alt. is simply another
way of saying us. Now, we can sit here and debate about why that is, but
currently, that is how it is perceived. Sure, Americans are, on the whole,
a tad self-centered but that is only part of the problem. The other part
lies in the fact that, like it or not, Americans created the net and
without us, there would be no net. More Americans have access to the net
than other countries and the ratios were even more biased when alt was
created. When alt was created, it became the default us.* because it
was *our* net. Was that self centered and short sighted? You bet.
But hey, at the time, it was our net and given newgroup criteria for
alt one can understand how this cam to be.
Now, having said that, what can we do about it? I don't think much can
be done until the great alt reorginization when and if that ever comes.
Grubbie pointed out in another article that uunet doesn't have any of
the us groups in their active file. We only carry a handfull here at
Goddard:
us.arts.tv.soaps
us.forsale.computers
us.forsale.d
us.forsale.misc
us.jobs.contract
us.jobs.misc
us.jobs.offered
us.jobs.resumes
us.sport.football.college
us.sport.football.misc
us.test
us.wanted.misc
usa.forsale
Unless this is changed, there is no motivation for Americans to switch
to us.* groups.
MAC
MAC
This is what came up when I just sent that article:
Your article's newsgroups:
alt.config Alternative subnet discussions and connectivity.
soc.culture.british Issues about Britain & those of British descent.
soc.culture.usa The culture of the United States of America.
us.groups ** invalid news group -- check spelling **
us.config ** invalid news group -- check spelling **
Check spelling, Send, Abort, Edit, or List?
We have got a long way to go.
Paul Taylor <pt@acl.icnet.uk>
In article <2jgn9m$h...@infmx.informix.com>, prob...@informix.com (Paul Roberts) writes:
|> In article <1994Feb11....@ttinews.tti.com> jac...@soldev.tti.com (Dick Jackson) writes:
|> >I live in the U.S. and some of my best friends are Americans but almost
|> >all of them share a trait that I find most irritating. If I am
|> >conversing with chap A, chap B will come along and without waiting
|> >or even apologising will immediately say what he wants to say (on some
|> >new subject).
|>
|> expect you to listen. Always remember that, dear boy. It's the secret
|> of social ease in this country. They talk entirely for their own
|> pleasure. Nothing they say is designed to be heard."
|>
|> from "The Loved One" by Evelyn Waugh.
"No one listens to anyone else any more, and if you try it you'll understand
why."
Dorothy Parker
Alan J Holmes
What has all this to do with soc.culture.british?
Alan J Holmes
What has all this to do with soc.culture.british?
Jamie Gritton
> I think you should wake up do something to get the us. hierarchy going.
b...@quercus.gsfc.nasa.gov (MAC) writes:
> Grubbie pointed out in another article that uunet doesn't have any of
> the us groups in their active file. We only carry a handfull here at
> Goddard:
> us.arts.tv.soaps
> us.forsale.computers
> us.forsale.d
> us.forsale.misc
> us.jobs.contract
> us.jobs.misc
> us.jobs.offered
> us.jobs.resumes
> us.sport.football.college
> us.sport.football.misc
> us.test
> us.wanted.misc
> usa.forsale
> Unless this is changed, there is no motivation for Americans to switch
> to us.* groups.
That handful is about all there is. As the one who created it, I
wouldn't call us.* at this point a hierarchy, rather the levings of an
attempt at a hierarchy.
I tried a couple of times to get formal discussion of a USA
hierarchy re-going on news.groups, but David Lawrence always blocked
it in news.announce.newgroups. To be fair, I think he would have
allowed it if I insisted/complained strongly enough. The attempt
continues...
The reason UUNET never carried the us.* groups is that David
Lawrence didn't agree with the way I made them or the content in its
present form. UUNET's clout being what it is, the groups never made it
"big time". This may change.
As soon as I get the new sendmail set up here, I'm going to start a
mailing list to discuss yet again formally proposing a USA hierarchy.
I presume David Lawrence (or someone associated with him) will be in
on this list, since he is in favor of the idea, just not its current
implementation. Once a decent hierarchy charter is worked out, the
us.* (or usa.*) hierarchy may be "fixed". Until then, we can just have
these pathetic us.* groups that nobody really uses anyway.
--
James Gritton - gri...@byu.edu - I disclaim - "
tsa...@netcom.com
18:46:20 GMT:
: In article <2jgcmh$q...@yarrow.csv.warwick.ac.uk> ma...@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Bob Tinsley) writes:
: >In article <2jgbur$c...@zip.eecs.umich.edu>,
: > jkf...@snarf.eecs.umich.edu (Joel Furr) writes:
: >>You all have your national hierarchies, and we have alt. It's the USA
: >>hierarchy, and you might as well get used to it.
: >
: >And here was me thinking that that was what us.* was.
: I live in the U.S. and some of my best friends are Americans but almost
: all of them share a trait that I find most irritating. If I am
: conversing with chap A, chap B will come along and without waiting
: or even apologising will immediately say what he wants to say (on some
: new subject). This is no doubt because all Americans are spoilt as kids,
I can think of several other reasons why this may be. One, chap B has a gun
pointed at your head. Two, this is the age of Instantaneous Everything.
Both chap A and chap B are perfectly comfortable with this, and probably
expect you to be also. Three, chap B has twelve different things on his
mind, eleven of which need to be done in the next five minutes, and just
doesn't have TIME to fiddle fart with long-drawn-out niceties. If something
irritates you, you should pipe up and say something, not just stand around
and fume. Mind-reading is still an imperfect art at best. :)
: in my experience parents always stop adult conversations to listen
: to little Johnny, instead of whacking the blighter about the ears and
: sending him on his way as good English parents would do.
Whack the little blighter about the ears in this country and you run the
extremely high risk of having your family destroyed when they take you AND
the blighter away. Or, conversely, you run the risk of having him blow your
head off in a bit. Good English parents are no better nor worse than good
parents anywhere. In America, though, we're going thru some very trying
times, and we have much on our collective minds.
: Its the same on the net of course.
: Let me assure everyone that in no way am I trying to start another
: us vs. them controversy. Its just a simple observation about the way
: things are.
Which brings me to my final point: why is it such a big deal to start _yet
another_ major hierarchy on the net? There are no borders here... it's a
community in and of itself. If things are being covered in the other
hierarchies, I just don't see the need for establishing invisible boundaries
on Usenet. That's what gets us into so much trouble _off_ the net. Blacks
here, whites here, Brits here, "Yankees" (wasn't that war ended decisively
quite a bit ago?) over here... I'd just as well we could leave all the
boundary-baggage behind.
So much for my two coppers' worth.
: Dick J