No Subject

To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
From: laurence at Alice_Wonderland.Caltech.EDU (Dustin L. Laurence)
Date: Thu, 11 May 95 15:35:13 PDT
>From: DAWB.DSKPO33B at DSKBGW1_ITG.ti.com (David Webb)
>Date: Thu, 11 May 1995 09:01 CST
>Subject: Newsgroups
>
>I am personally very much in favor of having a separate plant newsgroup.  I am 
>also in favor of another newsgroup that Dustin did not mention:  An equipment 
>newsgroup for discussion of cross-discipline equipment (filters, hoods, tanks, 
>stands, etc.)

The rfd currently includes a proposal for rec.aquaria.tech . I finally
called it tech because I thought that was more inclusive than
.hardware .

I put this group there in answer to the complaints that a split would
reduce cross-fertilization between specialties.  I believe that most
of that cross-fertilization involves hardware and related stuff, which
this group would cover, or ecology, which is a large enough field that
I don't think we could cover the useful cross-specialty fields without
drowning them in lots of stuff that isn't useful outside of a single
specialty.

I for one find that most of the lighting field is common to planted
freshwater tanks and reefs (really any tank that has primary producers).

>------------------------------
>
>From: David Randall <76535.2776 at compuserve_com>
>Date: 11 May 95 12:09:08 EDT
>Subject: rec.aquaria reorg
>
> Dustin,
>
> If we are to go to a newsgroup rather than the mailing list, I would much
>prefer that the aquatic plants section be moderated.  One of the reasons I
>have avoided posting on .aquaria is because of the flaming I have seen.  One
>of the things I have really enjoyed about this mailing list is how friendly
>and courteous everyone has been.  I'd hate to see that change.

If that is what you want, you can have a moderated group on the RFD.
However, there are two reasons why moderated group ideas often fail:

(1) There could be others who don't like it--you have to convince the
    rest of the group.  This is quite possibly not a problem.

(2) You have to find a moderator.  Most proposed moderated groups
    founder here.  The workload can be quite intense, I believe, and
    you can probably expect a lot more messages on a newsgroup next
    year (with the net still ballooning) than are currently on this
    list (probably even true if you stayed a list).  You also need to
    create a policy on how a moderator can be changed or replaced,
    because last I knew there is _no_ default way to do this if it
    isn't in the group charter.

Don't take this the wrong way, but finding a moderator is such a
problem that I'm not going to worry about it unless someone can be
identified who is willing and capable of doing the job.  Otherwise,
it isn't my decision to make, but rather your own and that of all
those who vote on the eventual CFV.

>I also like
>being able to quickly get the messages on the subject that interests me
>without going through all the other stuff.

I suspect you have an obsolete newsreader.  I find that newsgroups
are far easier to deal with than mailing lists, and the newsreader
I use (nn) is probably not terribly state of the art.  I get a menu
of all the unread messages in the group (unless I specifically ask
for others), select the ones I want to read, and page through them.
Other newsreaders like rn just force you to go through the messages
one by one, which I agree is nasty.

If this happens to be your problem, you may be able to fix it by
locating a better free newsreader, depending on what you like and
what is available for your system.

This is also not a problem if you gateway the list and the newsgroup
together, of course.

Dustin