Re: Proposal - Reinstate alt.usenet.reposts

[email protected] wrote:
> Jason Evans <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> Description: The newsgroup alt.usenet.reposts (AUR) was created to
>> contain articles that people have read in other newsgroups and which other
>> people might find amusing or interesting: there are over 45,000 groups out
>> there, and even if you wanted to, you couldn't read every one.  Instead, 
>> you can read AUR, and read about the violent end of flame wars, newbieisms 
>> too clueless for words, witty responses and other articles that a wider 
>> audience might find interesting. 
> 
> This I think is where your logic falls apart.
> 
> There might be 45,000 news groups out there (we're at almost 40,000 here)
> but I think you can read all of them and probably have quite a bit of time
> left over to read War and Peace.
> 
> There is barely 50MB of usenet a day and only around 10-12K posts.

That reads to me like an argument in the group's favour. Regardless
of the trend being down, I'm nowhere near making a dent in reading
though 10-12K posts each day. I only chose to spend time reading
alt.config because it's the weekend.

> Not really seeing much activity where a "best of" is warranted anymore.
> 
> I know what you are talking about though, when that group was created, even
> spending 5 or 6 hours a day looking around still made me use c (whatever the
> catch-up key was) to mark all of them read in certain groups.

I average around 1/2hr reading newsgroups on a weekday, and only
infrequently check a lot of groups, regularly marking all unread
posts as read on leaving. Often I find very interesting posts that
I could have easily missed. I don't have any confidence that
alt.usenet.reposts would help me personally to find them, but
if you're looking at post volume alone then it's still an argument
in the group's favour in my opinion.

> What is being posted where so that it needs to be pointed out as a
> highlight? rec.guns? alt.fan.rush-limbaugh? The only half assed semi-popular
> group I read is rec.arts.tv and that has been dwindling down in posts. And I
> can't think of any content in there that needs to be pointed out as "good"
> and reposted.

Well I save posts that I think are "good", but I wouldn't expect
other people to find most of them outstanding, which is my reason
for doubting that the group would be helpful except to a lot of
people with very broad but very similar interests. Maybe those
people exist though?

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