AdadlaA.98 net.misc utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ihnss!cbosg!teklabs!tekmdp!dadlaB!dadlaA!steve Mon Mar 15 21:56:49 1982 Trivia on the Net .so /usr/pla/intspc/nroff.h I am beginning to wonder about USENET. I thought it was supposed to represent electronic mail and bulletins among a group of professionals with a common interest, thus representing fast communications about important technical topics. Instead it appears to be mutating into electronic graffiti. If the system did not cost anything, that would be fine, but for us here at Tektronix, at least, it is costing us better than $200 a month for 300-baud long distance to copy lists of people's favorite movies, and recipes for goulash, and arguments about metaphysics and so on. Is this really appropriate to this type of system? The proliferation of new news-groups and discussions of same seems to take an inapropriately large amount of the system resources. I have seen perhaps 10 news items discussing the name of a new group about APL, but interestingly, I have not seen any news items with anything substantial about APL. Why is a group being established if no-one has anything to say about it? Much of the garbage on USENET is due to people using (F)ollup instead of (R)eply to make a comment about a news item they have seen. (How many replies were there to explain how the two sattelites that share the same orbit around Saturn avoid collisions? When I saw that, I sent a letter, rather than posting a news item. I must have been the only one.) I think there must be a little exhibitionist in all of us. After all, if my words are important enough to send to the person I am responding too, then they must be important enough for the world to see. Our management here, which signs the checks for the phone-bills, occasionally comes down and asks "What good is the system doing for us? Show us what it is saying." So they read the news and see trivia questions about Superman and Star Trek, and how to use Stravinsky's RITE OF SPRING to retaliate against disco loving neighbors, and why cooking with animal fat will kill you young. Come on, people, none has any relevance for us at all! Does this stuff really belong on USENET? If this continues, we are going to get our link to the system cancelled. There is a very large informal network of "bulletin board system's" (better than 300 nation wide). Here in Portland OR alone, we have 6 that I know of. Many of these types of systems have nationwide followings, and are oriented around specific topics. (For instance, there is one in Colorado oriented to GAY topics - just an example of how eclectic these systems get.) I suspect that such discussions would be better moved to such systems. To find out the numbers of them, just ask your local computer store. They will know the numbers of the local systems. The Portland ABBS system [(503)-641-8555] has an online list of several hundred, organized by type and coded by subject matter and hours. (Type "F" to the main menu to find the list.) The point of all this is that these bulletin board systems are run and maintained by private individuals, so any subject is open game. On a system in which corporations and universities are paying the bills, one would think that a little bit of professionalism would be appropriate. .nf Steve Den Beste Tektronix Logic Analyzer Engineering Portland, Oregon (ucbvax!teklabs!tekmdp!dadlaB!dadlaA!steve) ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.