Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: hougen@milli.cs.umn.edu (Dean Hougen)
Subject: Re: Split c.r? What are the facts?
Message-ID: <Cw3s6E.JFL@news.cis.umn.edu>
Summary: standard arguments
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Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, CSci dept.
References: <clint.laskowski-110994123541@jjwwjj.mixcom.com> <Cvzn9w.BMu@info.uucp> <3547s7$md9@cat.cis.Brown.EDU>
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 1994 04:42:53 GMT
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In article <3547s7$md9@cat.cis.Brown.EDU> plutchak@lager.geo.brown.edu (Joel Plutchak) writes:
>   Right there is the reason many news.groupies don't buy the "if
>you build it, they will come" philosophy.  The reasoning goes that
>if there are all these people here right now saying there should
>be a research group which they would post to, why aren't they
>posting?  The argument that they won't get responses may indicate
>lack of interest then, rather than lack of researchers (since we
>know they're there), 

The response, however, is that a lack of posting does *not* reflect
a lack of interest.  It reflects the fact that the potential posters
have examined the group and determined that it does not cover the
area that they are interesting in seeing covered.  I don't post my
robotics questions to sci.bio.herp, because I know the people there
are unlikely to have the answers or be interested in my questions.
That is the same reason I don't post my questions here.  Nonetheless,
I *am* interested in having a robotics group to which I could post
questions and have a reasonable chance of getting a response, its
just that I've determined that this group isn't it.


>in which case a research group isn't justified.

Of course, the old justification argument, which completely misses
the point that an additional newsgroup isn't really a problem for
anyone, so no justification is needed.


>About the only indicator that there is a large demand for the
>group would be the existence of an active mailing list with a
>reasonably large subscriber list.  

I disagree.  The indicator that there is interest will come from the
vote.  If nobody is interested in the proposed group, it will not
get enough votes to pass.  If it gets the votes, then there is the
interest.


>Conversely, given all the
>special-topic mailing lists out there, the lack of such a list
>can also be pointed to as a significant fact.

Again, I disagree.  I would propably not join a mailing list on this
subject.  I already know of several mailing lists on topics I am
interested in.  I do not subscribe to them, however, as I find they
clutter my mailbox and obscure critical messages.  This does not
mean I am not interested in the topics they cover; I subscribe to
the corresponding newsgroups where they exist.


>   Note that the above reasoning isn't necessarily my own, just that
>I've followed news.groups long enough to be familiar with some of
>the arguments you'll get if you ever get serious about floating an
>official proposal.  

I'm perfectly willing to take some of my time to hash this out in
news.groups, as I've done with other group creations which I thought
were important to me.  The "standard" arguments are typically bogus
and mostly seem to just be thrown up to discourage spur-of-the-
moment group creation.


>In my view, a lot of the complaints of the
>researchers would go away if the not-specifically-robotics-related
>electronics postings would go elsewhere.  

Perhaps, but short of moderation I don't know how you'd accomplish
this.


>However, I personally
>wouldn't oppose a reasonable split.  I'd probably read a hobbyist
>group religiously, read a research group lightly, and scan an
>industrial group occasionally.

And wouldn't it be nice to be able to prioritize things in exactly
your own way like that?  Thats what I'm hoping for.


>Joel Plutchak, Research Programmer/Analyst

Dean Hougen
--
"The news groups are not concerned with what there is to be learned."
    - the Clash
