TIM PIERCE FAQ: REPOST : OVERDUE
Martin Hannigan
This is overdue. Attention proposers of newgroups. Read this FAQ, and
then propose your group
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FAQ: Tim Pierce
1) Who is Tim Pierce?
He's the news administrator at Amherst College, up in Massa-
chusetts. He's been on the net long enough to consider
himself a sage authority on all manner of subjects.
2) Is he a sage authority on all manner of subjects?
No.
3) What's his favorite hobby?
His favorite hobby is lurking in alt.config and springing on
people who have ideas for new newsgroups and telling them
why their ideas are totally idiotic and worthy of being
buried in sixteen feat of cow manure. He never says any-
thing to the real losers who obviously don't know what
they're talking about, preferring to save his opinions for
those who sort of do and thus may be seen as in some vague
way challenging Tim's position as God of alt.config.
4) Is there *anything* that he's right about?
If he tells you that it would be a fine idea if no level of
your proposed newsgroup name had more than 14 characters
(e.g. "alt.transcendentalism" is too long for most news
software to deal with, but "alt.snuggling" isn't because no
level has more than 14 characters), he's right. On just
about all other conceivable issues, he's wrong.
5) I just proposed a new newsgroup in alt.config. Tim told me I
should start it first as a mailing list. But I just saw someone
who said they had a mailing list that they wanted to turn into a
newsgroup because it was getting too big, and Tim said that was
bad. What's going on here?
This is the Famous Tim Pierce Contradiction Number 1 (see
below for Number 2). A mailing list should never be turned
into a newsgroup, no matter how big it gets. All proposed
alt. groups should start out as mailing lists and only be
turned into newsgroups later if they do really well.
In other words, ignore him.
6) I just proposed a new newsgroup in one of the Big 7 hierar-
chies (comp, misc, soc, talk, news, sci, or rec) and Tim said it
should start out as an alt. group instead and then become a Big 7
group if it does really well. But I just saw someone who pro-
posed moving an alt. group to a Big 7 group and Tim said that was
horribly, unbelievably bad. What's going on here?
This is the Famous Tim Pierce Contradiction Number 2 (see
above for Number 1). A new newsgroup should start out as an
alt. group in order to judge how well it will do and maybe
later on move it to a Big 7 group. However, no alt. group
should EVER be moved to a Big 7 group because that would be
bad.
In other words, ignore him.
7) Is Tim mean-spirited and vicious?
Yes, but that's normal for USENET and the alt. net.
8) Are ASCII art pictures (e.g. those drawings of Ren and Stimpy
you see in people's .sigs) the same thing as binary source files
of pornographic GIFs?
According to Tim Pierce, they are. Totally and completely.
9) Tim Pierce sounds like a real crank.
Yep.
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||\ /|| ||| ||\\\\ \\\\\\\ || ||\ || RMGROUP *ALT.CONFIG*
|| \/ || || || || || || || || \ || Martin J. Hannigan
|| || ||||| ||||| || || || \ || Keeper the of alt.flameFAQ
|| || || || || \ || || || \|| ftp.netcom.com:/pub/martinh
"And you sir, are breaking the law.." NNET-COP Rico Garcia ra...@mit.edu(GUEST)
ksa...@news.delphi.com
That would explain an awful lot...