| |
In lugnet.off-topic.fun, cjc@NOSPAMnewsguy.com (Mike Stanley) writes:
> Todd Lehman <lehman@javanet.com> wrote:
> > But as the .off-topic.fun group tilts more toward the silly direction,
> > it's certain to bum out old-timers who remember when it happened to be
> > used primarily for geeking -- for example:
> >
> > http://www.lugnet.com/news/display.cgi?lugnet.off-topic.fun:43
> > http://www.lugnet.com/news/display.cgi?lugnet.off-topic.fun:70
> > http://www.lugnet.com/news/display.cgi?lugnet.off-topic.fun:38
> > http://www.lugnet.com/news/display.cgi?lugnet.off-topic.fun:100
> >
> > This is why we need the .off-topic.geek group.
>
> No?
>
> Unless you want 3 dozen .off-topic groups for each type of off-topic
> conversations, it seems a little silly to split them up like that.
Oh, definitely agreed! But I just think it's good to have a structure/plan
in mind so that when a group's time does come, a switch can simply be thrown
to turn it on. Otherwise without a structure in place, things grow a bit
too organically and it's harder to deal with them later. That other list of
~20 off-topic groups was just a list for the sake of discussion/
brainstorming, but it was really a serious list at this point.
> I'd say off-topic.fun could be a catch-all until enough traffic in a
> specific kind of subject warrants a subgroup.
In general, yeah, I totally agree with that. But some things, IMHO, like
.geek (now that it's been pointed out and my memory has been refreshed about
it from last fall), could certainly warrant their own subgroup regardless of
traffic. If there's a group there, simply by its existence will it gather
traffic, because geek stuff isn't typically "fun" and I think there's a
really good chance that it's generally not easy to feel comfortable going 10
levels deep into a thread on ISDN or SMTP or Redhat vs. Slackware on a group
labeled "fun."
> .geek might be called for at some point. .sports might also.
IMHO, if there were even just a handful of LEGO people here who were sports
fanatics and wanted to talk about sports to other LEGO people (for whatever
reason), and if the group would get used at least a couple times a day, then
I think that would be enough justification for a .sports group. IMO, there
doesn't have to be large amounts of traffic about a subject in order for a
focus group to be beneficial -- so long as people would actually want it as
a separate focus-group and would use it. Anything that helps LEGO people
meet one another, find common interests, and get more closely in touch is
all-righty with me!
> It would seem that .puns IS called for.
That has a familiar ring to it. ;-)
> I'd like to see how many messages that contain absolutely nothing of
> value other than having a pun in them that is a response to another
> pun have been posted versus the number of geek-related posts. I'd be
> willing to bet money the puns outnumber the geeks.
I'd like to see that too...that would be interesting. I think the answer is
that it varies month to month and week to week. In October, the geek posts
pegged the scales here. In April, the punsters pegged the scales.
> If that's true, why not .pun ?
It's fully justified, IMO. Working on it. Have been queueing up ng
creations so a bunch can be done at once.
> The thing that bothers me most about the constant punning in .fun is
> that it's not obvious that it is going on until I've wasted my time by
> beginning to read a thread. A thread that looks like it is about
> t-shirts, plates, K-mart sales, what have you, turns out to really be
> about puns, 12 or 15 messages of nothing but puns.
Aha. Yeah, OK, that's another good reason. :)
> Right now, if people want to skip geeky stuff, it's pretty easy to do
> by skipping threads like "Linux works?" "My new P2-400", etc.
I'd love to see these in a different place -- not because I'd want to skip
them but because I'd want to read them before reading the real fun stuff.
> It just seems kinda silly to be thinking of creating a group just for
> one small fraction of .fun's traffic when another type probably
> outnumbers it 2-5 to 1 over all, and more like 10 to 1 over the last
> few weeks.
When considering group splits, I think it's always important to keep in mind
that not everyone reads the groups by NNTP or HTTP where it's pretty easy to
skip stuff. Although only 5 people are subscribed to .fun via e-mail this
week, there were 6 people subscribed to it via e-mail last week. I don't
know why someone decided to unsubscribe, but if it had anything to do with
the punning, I wouldn't be surprised. Similarly, it's likely to be more
difficult for a non-geek to swallow geek stuff in a newsgroup when they get
it via e-mail (especially in digest form) than it would be if the geek stuff
were focused into its own group.
--Todd
|
|
Message is in Reply To:
33 Messages in This Thread:
  
 
- Entire Thread on One Page:
- Nested:
All | Brief | Compact | Dots
Linear:
All | Brief | Compact
|
|
|
|
